page_title: Manuel I of Portugal
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Manuel I of Portugal / Later life
caption_attribution_description: Português: Ofício dos Mortos (enterro de D. Manuel 1517-1551 António de Holanda (Livro de Horas de D. Manuel
context_page_description: Manuel I, known as the Fortunate, was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, as monarch. Manuel ruled over a period of intensive expansion of the Portuguese Empire owing to the numerous Portuguese discoveries made during his reign. His sponsorship of Vasco da Gama led to the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, resulting in the creation of the Portuguese India Armadas, which guaranteed Portugal's monopoly on the spice trade. Manuel began the Portuguese colonization of the Americas and Portuguese India, and oversaw the establishment of a vast trade empire across Africa and Asia.
  Manuel established the Casa da Índia, a royal institution that managed Portugal's monopolies and its imperial expansion, and he financed numerous famed Portuguese navigators, including Pedro Álvares Cabral, Afonso de Albuquerque, and João Vaz Corte-Real, among numerous others.
context_section_description: Isabella died in childbirth in 1498, thus putting a damper on Portuguese ambitions to rule in Spain, which various rulers had harbored since the reign of King Ferdinand I (1367–1383). Manuel and Isabella's young son, Miguel da Paz, was named Prince of Asturias, Prince of Portugal, and Prince of Girona, making him heir apparent of Castile, Portugal, and Aragon until his death in 1500, at the age of two years, ended the ambitions of the Catholic Monarchs and Manuel.
  Manuel's next wife, Maria of Aragon, was his first wife's younger sister. Two of their sons later became kings of Portugal. Maria died in 1517 but the two sisters were survived by an older sister, Joanna of Castile, who was born in 1479 and had married the Archduke Philip (Maximilian I's son) and had a son, Charles V who would eventually inherit Spain and the Habsburg possessions.
  Manuel I was awarded the Golden Rose by Pope Julius II in 1506 and by Pope Leo X in 1514. Manuel I became the first individual to receive more than one Golden Rose after Emperor Sigismund von Luxembourg.
caption: Manuel's funeral in 1521.
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