Vasco da Gama commanded Sao Gabriel when his fleet left Lisbon in 1497 and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The expedition reached Calicut on India's Malabar Coast in May 1498 before returning to Portugal. It opened a direct European sea route to India and accelerated Portuguese imperial expansion.

The voyage fulfilled the imperial and maritime vision celebrated by Luis de Camoes in Os Lusiadas, where da Gama narrates Portugal's history. The ship therefore became part of one of Europe's great sea epics, while postcolonial poets later revisited its legacy of commerce, violence and empire.