Alvise da Cadamosto (ca. 1428-1483) was an Italian trader and traveler from Venice who discovered the Cape Verde Islands and described the Canary Islands and the Senegal-Gambia-Geba area.

Alvise da Cadamosto sailed aboard Venetian galleys to North Africa, Crete, Alexandria, and Flanders between 1445 and 1452. On returning to Venice in 1454 he found his father banished and his family in distress. Because of Cadamosto's knowledge of the spice trade, Prince Henry the Navigator offered him a Portuguese caravel for a trading venture down the western African coast, with the right to keep half the products with which he returned.

Cadamosto, in a caravel of some 70 modern tons, left for Lagos in March 1455. He called at the Madeira and Canary islands, then traveled along the African coast. In his reports he observed that the Senegal River divided the arid Saharan region from the fertile, forested areas to the south. Beyond the...