The Portuguese Empire existed during the Renaissance.
The Portuguese Empire ( Império Português ) , also known as the Portuguese Overseas ( Ultramar Português ) , was one of the largest and longest-lived empires in world history and the first colonial empire of the Renaissance . It existed for almost six centuries from the capture of Ceuta in 1415 to the grant of sovereignty to East Timor in 2002 . The Portuguese Renaissance refers to the cultural and artistic movement in Portugal during the 15th , 16th , and 17th centuries . Though the movement coincided with the Spanish and Italian Renaissances , the Portuguese Renaissance was largely separate from other European Renaissances and instead was incredibly important in opening Europe to the unknown and bringing a more worldly view to those European Renaissances , as at the time the Portuguese Empire spanned the globe .