In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa, and in 1498 his countryman Vasco da Gama repeated the experiment, making it as far as India. The westernmost country in Europe, Portugal was the first to significantly probe the Atlantic Ocean, colonizing the Azores and other nearby islands, then braving the west coast of Africa. It was Portugal that kicked off what has come to be known as the Age of Discovery, in the mid-1400s. The show, like the nation that is its subject, has brought together art and ideas from nearly all parts of the world. At least that's the conclusion one is likely to reach after visiting a vast exhibition, more than four years in the making, at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Globalization began, you might say, a bit before the turn of the 16th century, in Portugal.
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