Mehmed the Second, portrait by Paolo Veronese
Mehmed II
( 30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (Ottoman Turkish: ابو الفتح, romanized: Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit. 'the Father of Conquest'; Turkish: Fâtih Sultan Mehmed), was an Ottoman sultan who ruled from August 1444 to September 1446, and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
In Mehmed II's first reign, he defeated the crusade led by John Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451, he strengthened the Ottoman navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. After the conquest, Mehmed claimed the title Caesar of the Roman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: قیصر روم, romanized: Qayser-i Rûm), based on the fact that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire since its consecration in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine I.[5] The claim was only recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Nonetheless, Mehmed II viewed the Ottoman state as a continuation of the Roman Empire for the remainder of his life, seeing himself as "continuing" the Empire rather than "replacing" it.
Mehmed continued his conquests in Anatolia with its reunification and in Southeast Europe as far west as Bosnia. At home he made many political and social reforms, encouraged the arts and sciences, and by the end of his reign, his rebuilding program had changed Constantinople into a thriving imperial capital. He is considered a hero in modern-day Turkey and parts of the wider Muslim world. Among other things, Istanbul's Fatih district, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge and Fatih Mosque are named after him.
1454
the Gutenberg Bible
(also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities[1] as well as its historical significance. It is an edition of the Latin Vulgate printed in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, in present-day Germany. Forty-nine copies (or substantial portions of copies) have survived.
Gutenberg Bible of the New York Public Library. Bought by James Lenox in 1847, it was the first copy to be acquired by a United States citizen.
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1393–1406 – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable-type printing press
Coat of arms of the Gensfleisch family, from the Register of Fiefs of Frederick I (1461)
A Gorom-Gorom market selling Songhai pottery.
The Tomb of Askia in Gao.
A tomb of a Kajif, from 1400
Maximum extension of the Songhai Empire at the beginning of the 16th century, superimposed on the current political borders.
Postcard published by Edmond Fortier showing the mosque in 1905-1906
Courtyard of the Djingareiber Mosque, Timbuktu
Outside the mosque
Street market and Great Mosque of Djenné
The Great Mosque in Djenné, Mali
Houses in Djenné with Toucouleur-style façades from a postcard by Edmond Fortier published in 1906.
Trade routes of the Western Sahara c. 1000-1500. Goldfields are indicated by light brown shading: Bambuk, Bure, Lobi, and Akan Goldfields.
1464
The Songhai Empire
(also transliterated as Songhay) was a state that dominated the western Sahel/Sudan in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history. The state is known by its historiographical name, derived from its leading ethnic group and ruling elite, the Songhai. Sonni Ali established Gao as the capital of the empire although a Songhai state had existed in and around Gao since the 11th century. Other important cities in the empire were Timbuktu and Djenné, conquered in 1468 and 1475 respectively, where urban-centered trade flourished and to the south is the north Akan state of Bonoman.[3] Initially, the empire was ruled by the Sonni dynasty (c. 1464–1493), but it was later replaced by the Askia dynasty (1493–1901).
During the second half of the 13th century, Gao and the surrounding region had grown into an important trading center and attracted the interest of the expanding Mali Empire. Mali conquered Gao towards the end of the 13th century. Gao would remain under Malian hegemony until the late 14th century. As the Mali Empire started to disintegrate, the Songhai reasserted control of Gao. Songhai rulers subsequently took advantage of the weakened Mali Empire to expand Songhai rule.
Under the rule of Sonni Ali, the Songhai surpassed the Malian Empire in area, wealth, and power, absorbing vast areas of the Mali Empire and reached its greatest extent. His son and successor, Sonni Bāru (1492–1493), was a less successful ruler of the empire, and as such was overthrown by Muhammad Ture (1493–1528; called Askia), one of his father's generals, who instituted political and economic reforms throughout the empire.
A series of plots and coups by Askia's successors forced the empire into a period of decline and instability. Askia's relatives attempted to govern the empire, but political chaos and several civil wars within the empire ensured the empire's continued decline, particularly during the brutal rule of Askia Ishaq I (1539–1549). The empire experienced a period of stability and a string of military successes during the reign of Askia Daoud (1549–1582/1583).
Askia Ishaq II (1588–1591) ascended to power in a long dynastic struggle following the death of Askia Daoud. He would be the last ruler of the Songhai Empire, for in 1590, al-Mansur took advantage of the recent civil strife in the empire and sent an army under the command of Judar Pasha to conquer the Songhai and to gain control of the Trans-Saharan trade routes. After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tondibi (1591), the Songhai Empire collapsed.
1467
The Sengoku period
(戦国時代, Sengoku Jidai, "Warring States period") was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1603.
The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Various samurai warlords and clans fought for control over Japan in the power vacuum, while the Ikkō-ikki emerged to fight against samurai rule. The arrival of Europeans in 1543 introduced the arquebus into Japanese warfare, and Japan ended its status as a tributary state of China in 1549. Oda Nobunaga dissolved the Ashikaga shogunate in 1573 and launched a war of political unification by force, including the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War, until his death in the Honnō-ji Incident in 1582. Nobunaga's successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi completed his campaign to unify Japan and consolidated his rule with numerous influential reforms. Hideyoshi launched the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592, but their eventual failure damaged his prestige before his death in 1598. Tokugawa Ieyasu displaced Hideyoshi's young son and successor Toyotomi Hideyori at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and re-established the feudal system under the Tokugawa shogunate. The Sengoku period ended when Toyotomi loyalists were defeated at the siege of Osaka in 1615.[1][2]
The Three Unifiers of Japan. From left to right: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu
Standard with the arms of the sengoku-daimyō Mōri Motonari. Mōri Clan Museum (Yamaguchi Prefecture).
Ōzutsu (Big Gun)
Takeda Shingen deflects Uesugi Kenshin's strike at the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima during the Sengoku period. Old Japanese painting.
The Battle of Onin during the Onin War (1467-1477) by Utagawa Yoshitora.
Japan in 1570
Japan in the late 16th century
Gunsmith storefront, Sakai, Osaka
Ōnin War (rebellion). A light soldier called Ashigaru was active. "Shinnyodo Engi Emaki". This is an important cultural property of Japan.
A picture of Sumimoto Hosokawa on horseback, painted by Motonobu Kano in 1507, at Eisei Bunko Museum.
Japanese; Armor (Dō-maru); Armor for Man-1/2 Armor
The sword of the fierce Buddhist deity Fudo Myo-o slays passions; his noose ensnares beings who do not pay him homage.
Matsumoto Castle is a National Treasure of Japan in Matsumoto, Nagano prefecture, Japan.
Negoroji in Iwade, Wakayama prefecture, Japan
The Gion Festival in Kyoto , detailed views inside and outside of the capital of kanō eitoku v. 1561-1562 ("Uesugi screens"). Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum.
Ginkakuji, the "Temple of the Silver Pavillion" is the popular name for the temple formerly known as Jishōji. This temple has its origin in the elegant villa known as the Higashiyama-dono, the "Palace of the Eastern Mountains" established by the eighth Muromachi shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490).The "silver pavilion" of Ginkaju-ji temple is the sedate, two-story Kannon Hall (designated as a National Treasure) on the far side of the raised sand gardens dominating the central court. Yoshimasa, a votary of both zen as well as the True Pure Land teachings, practiced meditation in the shoin-style room comprising of the lower story, which he named "Shinkuden" (Hall of the Emptied Mind). The upper story, which he named "Chōonkaku" (Sound-ofWaves Pavilion), holds a gilt image of Kannon, Goddess of Mercy.
View of Tōgudō (1486), a National Treasure at Ginkaku-ji
Landscapes of the Four Seasons (紙本墨画淡彩四季山水図, shihon bokuga tansai) by Sesshū Tōyō. Handscroll. Ink and light color on paper. Located in the Mōri Museum (毛利博物館), Hōfu, Yamaguchi, Japan
Maple Tree by Japanese painter Hasegawa Tōhaku in the 16th and 17th centuries. Painting dated 1592. Originally a painted for the four panels of fusuma (sliding wall panels) in Shōun-ji temple, now kept at Chishaku-in, Kyoto. Gold and color on paper. National Treasure of Japan.
Sen no Rikyū by Hasegawa Tōhaku
Suwa Yakata-ato Garden of Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins
The Timbuktu Manuscripts, with Arabic writings about mathematics and astronomy.
Timbuktu
Timbuktu
Map showing main trans-Saharan caravan routes c. 1400. Also shown are the Ghana Empire (until the 13th century) and 13th – 15th century Mali Empire, with the western route running from Djenné via Timbuktu to Sijilmassa. Present day Niger in yellow.
1468
Sunni Ali
Also known as Si Ali, Sunni Ali Ber (Ber meaning "the Great"),[1] was born in Ali Kolon.[2][3] He reigned from about 1464 to 1492. Sunni Ali was the first king of the Songhai Empire, located in Africa and the 15th ruler of the Sunni dynasty. Under Sunni Ali's command, many cities were captured and then fortified, such as Timbuktu (captured in 1468) and Djenné (captured in 1475). Sunni conducted a repressive policy against the scholars of Timbuktu, especially those of the Sankore region who were associated with the Tuareg whom Ali expelled to gain control of the town.
Sunni Ali organized a fleet to the Niger river. During his reign, Songhai surpassed the height of the Mali Empire, engulfing areas under the Mali Empire (and the Ghana Empire before it). His death, on November 6, 1492, is a matter of conjecture. According to the Tarikh al-Sudan, Ali drowned while crossing the Niger River.[4] Oral tradition believes he was killed by his sister's son, Askia Muhammad Ture.[4][5] He was succeeded by his son, Sunni Baru, who was challenged by Askia because Baru was not seen as a faithful Muslim.[6] Askia succeeded to the throne. According to the Tarikh al-Sudan it is believed that this action caused Sonni Ali's daughters to shout out "A si kiya!" a more modern phrasing would be “A si tiya” or (he shall not be it), at the news of this take over.[7]
Sunni Ali ruled over both urban Muslims and rural non-Muslims at a time when the traditional co-existence of different beliefs was being challenged. His adherence to African animism while also professing Islam leads some writers to describe him as outwardly or nominally Muslim.[4]
1469
Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici
(Italian: [loˈrɛntso de ˈmɛːditʃi]; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492)[2] was an Italian statesman, banker, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy.[3][4][5] Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo il Magnifico [loˈrɛntso il maɲˈɲiːfiko]) by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. He held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the Golden Age of Florence.
Lorenzo married Clarice Orsini on 7 February 1469.[34] The marriage in person took place in Florence on 4 June 1469. She was a daughter of Giacomo Orsini, Lord of Monterotondo and Bracciano by his wife and cousin Maddalena Orsini.
Lorenzo goes to Naples to Ferdinand of Aragon, painting by Giorgio Vasari and Marco da Faenza, Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Lorenzo the Magnificent, Florence
Portrait by Agnolo Bronzino at the Uffizi, Florence
Clarice Orsini
Detail of Domenico Ghirlandaio's Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule from the Sassetti Chapel frescos. Mounting the stairs in the forefront are the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, Angelo Poliziano, and Lorenzo's sons Giuliano, Piero and Giovanni, followed by two members of the Humanist Academy.
Sacra rappresentazione dei santi Giovanni e Paolo ("Holy representation of the Saints John and Paul"), a work by Lorenzo in the later years
A posthumous portrait of Lorenzo by Giorgio Vasari (16th century)
1469
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I (Spanish: Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504),[2] also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: la Católica), was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, as well as Queen consort of Aragon from 1479 until 1504 by virtue of her marriage to King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Reigning together over a dynastically unified Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs.[3]
After a struggle to claim the throne, Isabella reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years,[4][better source needed] and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her half-brother King Henry IV had left behind. Isabella's marriage to Ferdinand in 1469 created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms.
Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon are known for being the first monarchs to be referred to as "Queen of Spain" and "King of Spain" respectively, labeled such for completing the Reconquista, for issuing the Alhambra Decree which ordered the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain, for establishing the Spanish Inquisition, for supporting and financing Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage that led to the arrival at the New World by Europeans and established the Spanish empire, for making Spain a major power in Europe and much of the world, and for ushering in the Spanish Golden Age.[5] Isabella was granted, together with her husband, the title of "Catholic monarch" by the Spanish Pope Alexander VI, and was recognized in 1974 as a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.
1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543 , was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.
The Copernican Revolution was the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. This revolution consisted of two phases; the first being extremely mathematical in nature and the second phase starting in 1610 with the publication of a pamphlet by Galileo.[1] Beginning with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, contributions to the “revolution” continued until finally ending with Isaac Newton’s work over a century later.
Copernicus studied at Bologna University during 1496–1501, where he became the assistant of Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. He is known to have studied the Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei by Peuerbach and Regiomontanus (printed in Venice in 1496) and to have performed observations of lunar motions on 9 March 1497. Copernicus went on to develop an explicitly heliocentric model of planetary motion, at first written in his short work Commentariolus some time before 1514, circulated in a limited number of copies among his acquaintances. He continued to refine his system until publishing his larger work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), which contained detailed diagrams and tables.
1475
The Treaty of Picquigny
was a peace treaty negotiated on 29 August 1475 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It followed from an invasion of France by Edward IV of England in alliance with Burgundy and Brittany. It left Louis XI of France free to solve the threat posed by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
1479
The Treaty of Alcáçovas
(also known as Treaty or Peace of Alcáçovas-Toledo) was signed on 4 September 1479 between the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon on one side and Afonso V and his son, Prince John of Portugal, on the other side. It put an end to the War of the Castilian Succession, which ended with a victory of the Castilians on land[1] and a Portuguese victory on the sea.[2] [1] The four peace treaties signed at Alcáçovas reflected that outcome: Isabella was recognized as Queen of Castile while Portugal reached hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean.
The treaty intended to regulate:
The renunciation of Afonso V and Castilian Monarchs to the Castilian throne and Portuguese throne, respectively
The division of the Atlantic Ocean and overseas territories into two zones of influence
The destiny of Juana de Trastámara
The contract of marriage between Isabella, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, with Afonso, heir of Prince John. This was known as Tercerias de Moura, and included the payment to Portugal of a war compensation by the Catholic Monarchs in the form of marriage dowry.[3]
The pardon of the Castilian supporters of Juana
Treaty of Alcaçovas. Notification of the treaty to the city of Seville, March 14 1480. 1st page.
Afonso V of Portugal
Ferdinand and Isabella
1483
The lançados
(literally, the thrown out ones[1] or the cast out ones) were settlers and adventurers of Portuguese origin in Senegambia, Cabo Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and other areas on the coast of West Africa. Many were Jews—often New Christians—escaping persecution from the Portuguese Inquisition. Lançados often took African wives from local ruling families, securing protection and advantageous trading ties. They established clandestine trading networks in weaponry, spices, and slaves. This black market angered the Portuguese Crown by disrupting its ability to collect taxes.
Although never large in numbers, mixed-race children born to the lançados and their African wives and concubines served as crucial intermediaries between Europeans and native Africans. These mixed-race people wielded significant power in the early development of port economies in Bissau, Cacheu, and surrounding areas.[2]
The lançados originated the Portuguese-based creole languages and cultures of Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau, and indirectly influenced the Papiamento language.
Diogo Cão
( 1452-1486), anglicised as Diogo Cam and also known as Diego Cam,[1] was a Portuguese explorer and one of the most notable navigators of the Age of Discovery. He made two voyages sailing along the west coast of Africa in the 1480s, exploring the Congo River and the coasts of the present-day Angola and Namibia.[2]
First voyage
When King John II of Portugal restarted the work of Henry the Navigator, he sent out Cão (probably around midsummer 1482) to explore the African coast south of the equator. Diogo Cão filled his ship with stone pillars surmounted by the cross of the Order of Christ and engraved with the Portuguese royal arms (padrãos), with the plan to erect one in every new place he would discover.[6]
On his way, he stopped in the newly built Elmina Castle to stock up.[citation needed]
He discovered the mouth and estuary of the Congo, probably in August 1482 and marked it with a padrão, or stone pillar erected on Shark Point, attesting to the sovereignty of Portugal. This padrão still stands to this day, albeit in ruins.
He also sailed up the great river for a short distance and commenced modest commerce with the natives of the Bakongo kingdom. He was told that their King lived farther upriver. He sent four men to meet the King, kept four natives to serve as ambassadors of Kongo in Portugal, and sailed back down the Atlantic.[citation needed] Cão then coasted down along present Angola (Portuguese West Africa) and erected a second padrão, probably marking the termination of this voyage, at Cape Saint Mary (the Monte Negro of these first visitors).[7]
The first padrão erected at the mouth of the Congo River, the S. Jorge, has been taken by an English ship that sunk, according to indigenous rumors (the base is still there). The second one, the St. Agostinho, still stands today, but is without its cross on top.[citation needed]
He returned to Lisbon by 8 April 1484 (on his return he discovered the Island of Annobón), where John II ennobled him, promoting him from esquire to a knight of his household, and granted him an annuity (10000 reais) and a coat of arms where two padrões are represented. The King also asked him to sail back to Kongo to repatriate the 4 men he left behind.[7][citation needed]
Second voyage
That Cão, on his second voyage of 1484–1486, was accompanied by Martin Behaim (as alleged on the latter's Nuremberg globe of 1492) is very doubtful. But it is known that the explorer revisited the Congo and erected two more padrões on land beyond his previous voyage. The first was at Cabo Negro, Angola, the second at Cape Cross. The Cape Cross pillar probably marked the end of his progress southward, some 1,400 kilometers.[7] Diogo Cão also embarked the four indigenous ambassadors, that he had promised not to keep for more than fifteen moons.[8]
Cão sailed up the Kongo River (which he thought led towards the realm of Prester John), up to the neighborhood of the site of Matadi. There, in October or November 1485, near the falls of Ielala, he left an inscription engraved on the stone which testifies of its passage and that of his men: Aqui chegaram os navios do esclarecido rei D.João II de Portugal - Diogo Cão, Pero Anes, Pero da Costa. ("Here reached the ships of the enlightened king John II of Portugal – Diogo Cão, Pero Anes, Pero da Costa").
According to one authority (a legend on the 1489 map of Henricus Martellus Germanus), Cão died off Cape Cross; but João de Barros and others wrote of his return to the Kongo, and subsequent taking of a native envoy to Portugal. A report by a board of astronomers and pilots presented at a 1525 conference in Badajo clearly stated that his death happened near Serra Parda. A coast map by Henricus Martellus Germanus published in 1489 indicated the location of a padrão erected by Diogo Cão in Ponta dos Farilhões nearby Serra Parda, with the legend "et hic moritur" ("and here he died"). The Venetian cartographer Pietro Coppo corroborated this location of death in 1520.[citation needed]
The four pillars set up by Cão on his two voyages have all been discovered still on their original site, and the inscriptions on two of them from Cape Santa Maria and Cape Cross, dated 1482 and 1485 respectively, are still to be read and have been printed. The Cape Cross padrão was long in Berlin (replaced on the spot by a granite facsimile) but was recently returned to Namibia; those from the Kongo estuary and the more southerly Cape Santa Maria and Cabo Negro are in the Museum of the Lisbon Geographical Society.[7]
1488
Bartolomeu Dias
(c. 1450 – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lays in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries effectively established the sea route between Europe and Asia.
The Cape of Good Hope
(Afrikaans: Kaap die Goeie Hoop [ˌkɑːp di ˌχujə ˈɦuəp])[a] is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. In fact, the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast.[1] The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold-water Benguela current and turns back on itself. That oceanic meeting point fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) east of the Cape of Good Hope).
When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1487 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the Far East (although Herodotus mentioned a claim that the Phoenicians had done so far earlier).[2] Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas ('Cape of Storms'; Dutch: Stormkaap), which was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".[3]
As one of the great capes of the South Atlantic Ocean, the Cape of Good Hope has long been of special significance to sailors, many of whom refer to it simply as "the Cape".[4] It is a waypoint on the Cape Route and the clipper route followed by clipper ships to the Far East and Australia, and still followed by several offshore yacht races.
The term Cape of Good Hope is also used in three other ways:
It is a section of the Table Mountain National Park, within which the cape of the same name, as well as Cape Point, falls. Prior to its incorporation into the national park, this section constituted the Cape Point Nature Reserve.[5]
It was the name of the early Cape Colony established by the Dutch East Indies Company in 1652, on the Cape Peninsula.
Just before the Union of South Africa was formed, the term referred to the entire region that in 1910 was to become the Cape of Good Hope Province (usually shortened to the Cape Province).
1492
Christopher Columbus
On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack, the Santa María, owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa, and under Columbus's direct command.[96] The other two were smaller caravels, the Pinta and the Niña,[97] piloted by the Pinzón brothers.[96] Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September,[98] for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.
On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".[99] On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through the night, believing land was soon to be found. At around 02:00 the following morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus.[100][101] Columbus later maintained that he had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[44][102] Columbus called this island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani.[103][g] Christopher Columbus's journal entry of 12 October 1492 states:
I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they come here from tierra firme to take them captive. They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak.[105]
1493
askia mohammed
Askia Muhammad I (b. 1443 – d. 1538), born Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Turi[a] or Muhammad Ture, was the first ruler of the Askia dynasty of the Songhai Empire, reigning from 1493 to 1528. He is also known as Askia the Great, and his name in modern Songhai is Mamar Kassey. Askia Muhammad strengthened his empire and made it the largest empire in West Africa's history. At its peak under his reign, the Songhai Empire encompassed the Hausa states as far as Kano (in present-day Northern Nigeria) and much of the territory that had belonged to the Songhai empire in the east. His policies resulted in a rapid expansion of trade with Europe and Asia, the creation of many schools, and the establishment of Islam as an integral part of the empire.
Muhammad was a prominent general under the Songhai ruler Sunni Ali. When Sunni Ali was succeeded by his son, Sunni Baru, in 1492, Muhammad challenged the succession on the grounds that the new ruler was not a faithful Muslim.[1] He defeated Baru and ascended to the throne in 1493.[2]
Ture subsequently orchestrated a program of expansion and consolidation which extended the empire from Taghaza in the North to the borders of Yatenga in the South; and from Air in the Northeast to Futa Djallon in Guinea. Instead of organizing the empire along Islamic lines, he tempered and improved on the traditional model by instituting a system of bureaucratic government unparalleled in Western Africa. In addition, Askia established standardized trade measures and regulations, initiated the policing of trade routes and also established an organized tax system. He was overthrown by his son, Askia Musa, in 1528.[3]
The Askiya dynasty
, also known as the Askia dynasty, ruled the Songhai Empire at the height of that state's power. It was founded in 1493 by Askia Mohammad I, a general of the Songhai Empire who usurped the Sonni dynasty. The Askiya ruled from Gao over the vast Songhai Empire until its defeat by a Moroccan invasion force in 1591. After the defeat, the dynasty moved south back to its homeland and created several smaller kingdoms in what is today Songhai in south-western Niger and further south in the Dendi.
1494
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان اول, romanized: Süleyman-ı Evvel; Turkish: I. Süleyman; 6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver (Ottoman Turkish: قانونى سلطان سليمان, romanized: Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān) in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566.[2]: 541–45 Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people.
Suleiman succeeded his father, Selim I, as sultan on 30 September 1520 and began his reign with campaigns against the Christian powers in central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and the island of Rhodes in 1522–23. At Mohács, in August 1526, Suleiman broke the military strength of Hungary.
Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as well as most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the siege of Vienna in 1529. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.[4]: 61
At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the empire's chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia).[5] He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the "Golden" age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development.[6]
Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hürrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, an Orthodox Christian of Ruthenian origin who converted to Islam, and who became famous in the West by the name Roxelana, due to her red hair. Their son, Selim II, succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; Mehmed had died in 1543 from smallpox, and Mustafa had been strangled to death in 1553 at the sultan's order. His other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleiman's orders, along with Bayezid's four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars typically regarded the period after his death to be one of crisis and adaptation rather than simple decline,[7][8][9] the end of Suleiman's reign was a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire.[10]: 11 [11]
1500
atahualpa
Also Atawallpa (Quechua), Atabalica,[5][6] Atahuallpa, Atabalipa (c. 1502 – 26–29 July 1533),[7] was the last effective Inca Emperor before his capture and execution during the Spanish conquest.
Atahualpa was the son of the emperor Huayna Cápac, who died around 1525 along with his successor, Ninan Cuyochi, in a smallpox epidemic. Atahualpa initially accepted his half-brother Huáscar as the new emperor, who in turn appointed him as governor of Quito in the north of the empire. The uneasy peace between them deteriorated over the next few years. From 1529 to 1532, they contested the succession in the Inca Civil War, in which Atahualpa's forces defeated and captured Huáscar.
Around the same time as Atahualpa's victory, a group of Spanish conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizarro, arrived in the region. In November, they captured Atahualpa during an ambush at Cajamarca. In captivity, Atahualpa gave a ransom in exchange for a promise of release and arranged for the execution of Huáscar. After receiving the ransom, the Spanish accused Atahualpa of treason, conspiracy against the Spanish Crown, and the murder of Huáscar. They put him on trial, sentenced him to be burned at the stake but, after his baptism, he was instead garroted in July 1533.
A line of successors continued to claim the title of emperor, as either as Spanish vassals or as rebel leaders, but none were able to hold comparable power.
David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo.
Portrait by Daniele da Volterra, c. 1545
![Drawing showing Tommaso dei Cavalieri by Michelangelo[76][77]](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/ff06607a-f0aa-488c-b0b8-f85c8af97220/8cbe55a5-e4cb-435a-8724-f6a7cde1104c_rw_600.jpg?h=a34e9ab604e30159f2cde124eeaa7545)
Drawing showing Tommaso dei Cavalieri by Michelangelo[76][77]
1501
Michelangelo
di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Italian: [mikeˈlandʒelo di lodoˈviːko ˌbwɔnarˈrɔːti siˈmoːni]; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (English: /ˌmaɪkəlˈændʒəloʊ, ˌmɪk-/[1]), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect,[2] and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci.[3] Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.[4][5]
Michelangelo achieved fame early; two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before the age of thirty. Although he did not consider himself a painter, Michelangelo created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture.[6] At the age of 71, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his death.
Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.[3] In fact, three biographies were published during his lifetime. One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that Michelangelo's work transcended that of any artist living or dead, and was "supreme in not one art alone but in all three."[7]
In his lifetime, Michelangelo was often called Il Divino ('the divine one').[8] His contemporaries often admired his terribilità—his ability to instill a sense of awe in viewers of his art. Attempts by subsequent artists to imitate[9] the expressive physicality of Michelangelo's style contributed to the rise of Mannerism, a short-lived movement in Western art following the High Renaissance.
1507
Cesare Borgia
(Italian pronunciation: [ˈtʃeːzare ˈbɔrdʒa, ˈtʃɛː-]; Valencian: Cèsar Borja [ˈsɛzaɾ ˈbɔɾdʒa]; Spanish: César Borja [ˈθesaɾ ˈβoɾxa]; 13 September 1475 – 12 March 1507) was an Italian[3][4] ex-cardinal[5] and condottiero (mercenary leader)[6][7] of Aragonese (Spanish) origin,[8] whose fight for power was a major inspiration for The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. He was an illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI and member of the Spanish-Aragonese House of Borgia.[9]
After initially entering the Church and becoming a cardinal on his father's election to the Papacy, he became, after the death of his brother in 1498, the first person to resign a cardinalate. He served as a condottiero for King Louis XII of France around 1500, and occupied Milan and Naples during the Italian Wars. At the same time he carved out a state for himself in Central Italy, but after his father's death he was unable to retain power for long. According to Machiavelli, this was not due to a lack of foresight, but his error in creating a new pope.[10]
1507
The Capture of Hormuz
Occurred when the Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque attacked Hormuz Island to establish the Fortress of Hormuz. This conquest gave the Portuguese full control of the trade between India and Europe passing through the Persian Gulf.[3]
The campaign against Hormuz was a result of a plan by King Manuel I of Portugal, who in 1505 had resolved to thwart Muslim trade in the Indian Ocean by capturing Aden to block trade through the Red Sea and Alexandria; Ormuz, to block trade through Beirut; and Malacca to control trade with China.[4] The Portuguese had reports indicating that the island of Socotra was inhabited by Nestorian Christians and might prove useful towards this endeavor. Socotra was then a dominion of the Banu Afrar clan of Qishn, in mainland Arabia, whom the Portuguese would refer in the 16th century as Fartaques.[5]
Thus, in April 1506, two fleets totalizing 16 ships, under the overall command of Tristão da Cunha, were dispatched from Lisbon to capture Socotra and establish on it a fort. Cunha was assisted by Afonso de Albuquerque, who was nominated as captain-major of the sea of Arabia and tasked with blockading Muslim shipping in the Red Sea.
After a long journey of 12 months, 6 months longer than predicted, the fleet finally landed at Suq in Socotra in April 1507. After a brief but stiff struggle, the Portuguese took over the local fort, which was renamed São Miguel, and a tribute in goats was imposed on the population to sustain it. Tristão da Cunha then proceeded to India in July, leaving Albuquerque with seven ships on the island.[6]
After such a long journey though, Albuquerque had lost many men to disease, his ships and equipment were in need of repairs and had almost exhausted his food supplies. Socotra proved to be much poorer and remoter than the Portuguese had anticipated, so the expedition soon ran the risk of starvation.[7] Because of this, on August 10 Afonso de Albuquerque set sail to the Strait of Hormuz where, hopefully, he could acquire supplies by any means necessary, and accomplish his secret instructions to subjugate Hormuz - or "die like knights rather than starving little by little", in the words of Albuquerque.[8]
Satellite photo of Hormuz Island
The Portuguese Castle on Hormuz Island
Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1523) by Hans Holbein the Younger
Erasmus in 1523, by Hans Holbein
Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus by Albrecht Dürer, 1526, engraved in Nuremberg, Germany.
The first page of the Erasmian New Testament
The last page of the Erasmian New Testament (Rev 22:8-21)
Statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam. It was created by Hendrick de Keyser in 1622, replacing a wooden statue of 1549.
In Praise of Folly illustrated by Hans Holbein This edition was published by Charles Patin who dedicated it to Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Hans Holbein's witty marginal drawing of Folly (1515), in the first edition, a copy owned by Erasmus himself (Kupferstichkabinett, Basel)
1509
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (/ˌdɛzɪˈdɪəriəs ɪˈræzməs/; Dutch: [ˌdeːziˈdeːriʏs eˈrɑsmʏs]; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;[note 1] 28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536) was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic theologian who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance.[2][3][4] As a Catholic priest, he was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he was given the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists".[5] Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will,[6] In Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style and many other works.
Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. He remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within.[7][8] He also held to the doctrine of synergism, which some Reformers (Calvinists) rejected in favor of the doctrine of monergism. His middle-road (via media) approach disappointed, and even angered, scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died suddenly in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant and was buried in Basel Minster, the former cathedral of the city.[9]
Novum Instrumentum omne
was the first published New Testament in Greek (1516). It was prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) of Basel. Although the first printed Greek New Testament was the Complutensian Polyglot (1514), it was the second to be published (1516). Erasmus used several Greek manuscripts housed in Basel, but some verses in Revelation he translated from the Latin Vulgate.[1]
Five editions of Novum Instrumentum omne were published, although its title was changed to Novum Testamentum omne with the second edition, and the name continued. Erasmus issued editions in 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1536. Notable amongst these are the second edition (1519),[2] used by Martin Luther for his translation of the New Testament into German (the so-called "September Testament"), and the third edition (1522), which was used by William Tyndale for the first English New Testament (1526) and later by translators of the Geneva Bible and the King James Version. With the third edition, the Comma Johanneum was included. The Erasmian editions, and the 16th century revisions thereof, were the basis for the majority of modern translations of the New Testament in the 16–19th centuries.
In Praise of Folly
In Praise of Folly, also translated as The Praise of Folly (Latin: Stultitiae Laus or Moriae Encomium), is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in June 1511. Inspired by previous works of the Italian humanist Faustino Perisauli [it] De Triumpho Stultitiae, it is a satirical attack on superstitions, various traditions of European society, and on the Latin Church.[1]
Erasmus revised and extended his work, which was originally written in the space of a week while sojourning with Sir Thomas More at More's house in Bucklersbury in the City of London.[2] The title Moriae Encomium had a punning second meaning as In Praise of More (In Greek moría translates into folly".[3] In Praise of Folly is considered one of the most notable works of the Renaissance and played an important role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.[4]
1511
Raffaello
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino[a] (Italian: [raffaˈɛllo ˈsantsjo da urˈbiːno]; March 28 or April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520),[2][b] better known as Raphael (UK: /ˈræfeɪəl/ RAF-ay-əl, US: /ˈræfiəl, ˈreɪf-, ˌrɑːfaɪˈɛl/ RA(Y)F-ee-əl, RAH-fy-EL),[4] was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.[5] Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.[6]
His father was court painter to the ruler of the small but highly cultured city of Urbino. He died when Raphael was eleven, and Raphael seems to have played a role in managing the family workshop from this point. He trained in the workshop of Perugino, and was described as a fully trained "master" by 1500. He worked in or for several cities in north Italy until in 1508 he moved to Rome at the invitation of the pope, to work on the Vatican Palace. He was given a series of important commissions there and elsewhere in the city, and began to work as an architect. He was still at the height of his powers at his death in 1520.
Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his early death at 37, leaving a large body of work. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two popes and their close associates.[7] Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome, much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking.
After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. Thanks to the influence of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann his work became a formative influence on Neoclassical painting, but his techniques would later be explicitly and emphatically rejected by groups such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The School of Athens
The School of Athens (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. The fresco was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It depicts a congregation of philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists from Ancient Greece, including Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Archimedes, and Heraclitus. The Italian artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are also featured in the painting, shown as Plato and Heraclitus respectively.
The painting notably features accurate perspective projection, a defining characteristic of the Renaissance era. Raphael learned perspective from Leonardo, whose role as Plato is central in the painting. The themes of the painting, such as the rebirth of Ancient Greek philosophy and culture in Europe (along with Raphael's work) were inspired by Leonardo's individual pursuits in theatre, engineering, optics, geometry, physiology, anatomy, history, architecture and art.[1]
The School of Athens is regarded as one of Raphael's best known works, and has been described as "Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance".[2]
Self-portrait of Raphael, aged approximately 23
Portrait of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino from 1482 to 1508, c. 1507. (Uffizi Gallery)
Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, c. 1515
Saint George and the Dragon, a small work (29 x 21 cm) for the court of Urbino (Louvre)
Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, c. 1509-1511
Portrait of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, c. 1509-1511
Stanza della Segnatura("Room of the Signatura")
Raphael's sarcophagus
1511
Leonardo da Vinci
(15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.[3] While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal,[4] and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary, Michelangelo.[3][4]
Born out of wedlock to a successful notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He began his career in the city, but then spent much time in the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Later, he worked in Florence and Milan again, as well as briefly in Rome, all while attracting a large following of imitators and students. Upon the invitation of Francis I, he spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, there has not been a time where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical thinking have failed to incite interest and admiration,[3][4] making him a frequent namesake and subject in culture.[vague]
Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance.[3] Despite having many lost works and fewer than 25 attributed major works—including numerous unfinished works—he created some of the most influential paintings in Western art.[3] His magnum opus, the Mona Lisa, is his best known work and often regarded as the world's most famous painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. In 2017, Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole or part to Leonardo,[5] was sold at auction for US$450.3 million, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.
Revered for his technological ingenuity, he conceptualized flying machines, a type of armored fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, a ratio machine that could be used in an adding machine,[6][7] and the double hull. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. Some of his smaller inventions, however, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, hydrodynamics, geology, optics, and tribology, but he did not publish his findings and they had little to no direct influence on subsequent science.[8]
the mona lisa
Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance,[4][5] it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".[6] The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression,[7] monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.[8]
The painting has been definitively identified to depict Italian noblewoman Lisa del Giocondo.[9] It is painted in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. Leonardo never gave the painting to the Giocondo family, and it is believed he later left it in his will to his favored apprentice Salaì.[10] It was believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic. It has been on permanent display at the Louvre in Paris since 1797.[11]
The painting's global fame and popularity stem from its 1911 theft by Vincenzo Peruggia, who attributed his actions to Italian patriotism—a belief it should belong to Italy. The theft and subsequent recovery in 1914 generated unprecedented publicity for an art theft, and led to the publication of many cultural depictions such as the 1915 opera Mona Lisa, two early 1930s films (The Theft of the Mona Lisa and Arsène Lupin) and the song Mona Lisa recorded by Nat King Cole—one of the most successful songs of the 1950s.[12]
The Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest-known painting insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962[13] equivalent to $1 billion as of 2023.[14]
Studies of the Fetus in the Womb
are two colored annotated sketches by Leonardo da Vinci made in around 1511.[1] The studies correctly depict the human fetus in its proper position inside a dissected uterus.[2] Leonardo depicted the uterus with one chamber, in contrast to theories that the uterus had multiple chambers which many believed divided fetuses into separate compartments in the case of twins.[2] Leonardo also correctly drew the uterine artery and the vascular system of the cervix and vagina.
1512
The Battle of Ravenna
, 11 April 1512, was a major battle of the War of the League of Cambrai. It pitted forces of the Holy League against France and their Ferrarese allies. Although the French and Ferrarese eliminated the Papal-Spanish forces as a serious threat, their triumph was overshadowed by the loss of their young general Gaston of Foix. The victory therefore did not help them secure northern Italy. The French withdrew entirely from Italy in the summer of 1512, as Swiss mercenaries hired by Pope Julius II and Imperial troops under Emperor Maximilian I arrived in Lombardy. The Sforza were restored to power in Milan.
Martin Luther
10 November 1483[2] – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar.[3] He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation whose followers became known as Lutherans.
Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, he disputed the view on indulgences. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Holy Roman Emperor. Luther died in 1546 with Pope Leo X's excommunication still in effect.
Luther taught that salvation and, consequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds; rather, they are received only as the free gift of God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority and office of the pope by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge,[4] and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.[5] Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans, though Luther insisted on Christian or Evangelical (German: evangelisch) as the only acceptable names for individuals who professed Christ. His translation of the Bible into the German vernacular (instead of Latin) made it more accessible to the laity, an event that had a tremendous impact on both the church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation,[6] and influenced the writing of an English translation, the Tyndale Bible.[7] His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches.[8] His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry.[9]
In two of his later works, Luther expressed anti-Judaistic views, calling for the expulsion of Jews and burning of synagogues.[10] In addition, these works also targeted Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, and nontrinitarian Christians.[11] Based upon his teachings,[12][13][14] the prevailing view among historians is that his rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany and of the Nazi Party.[15][16][17]
Monastic life
Luther dedicated himself to the Augustinian order, devoting himself to fasting, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession.[31] Luther described this period of his life as one of deep spiritual despair. He said, "I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailer and hangman of my poor soul."[32]
Johann von Staupitz, his superior, concluded that Luther needed more work to distract him from excessive introspection and ordered him to pursue an academic career. On 3 April 1507, Jerome Schultz (lat. Hieronymus Scultetus), the Bishop of Brandenburg, ordained Luther in Erfurt Cathedral. In 1508, he began teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg.[33] He received a bachelor's degree in biblical studies on 9 March 1508 and another bachelor's degree in the Sentences by Peter Lombard in 1509.[34] On 19 October 1512, he was awarded his Doctor of Theology and, on 21 October 1512, was received into the senate of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg,[35] having succeeded von Staupitz as chair of theology.[36] He spent the rest of his career in this position at the University of Wittenberg.
He was made provincial vicar of Saxony and Thuringia by his religious order in 1515. This meant he was to visit and oversee each of eleven monasteries in his province.[37]
the Ninety-five Theses
Or Dispute on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences[a] is a list of propositions for an academic disputation written in 1517 by Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, at the time controlled by the Electorate of Saxony. At the time, he was considered the youngest member of the theological faculty at the university which was still known for its medieval theology. Luther would later be promoted to take over the chair of Biblical studies of the theological staff of Wittenberg as the successor of Johann von Staupitz.[2] Retrospectively considered to signal the start of the Protestant Reformation and the birth of Protestantism, the document advances Luther's positions against what he saw as the abuse of the practice of clergy selling plenary indulgences, which were certificates supposed to reduce the temporal punishment in purgatory for sins committed by the purchasers or their loved ones. In the Theses, Luther claimed that the repentance required by Christ in order for sins to be forgiven involves inner spiritual repentance rather than merely external sacramental confession. He argued that indulgences led Christians to avoid true repentance and sorrow for sin, believing that they could forgo it by obtaining an indulgence. These indulgences, according to Luther, discouraged Christians from giving to the poor and performing other acts of mercy, which he attributed to a belief that indulgence certificates were more spiritually valuable. Though Luther claimed that his positions on indulgences accorded with those of Pope Leo X, the Theses challenge a 14th-century papal bull stating that the pope could use the treasury of merit and the good deeds of past saints to forgive temporal punishment for sins. The Theses are framed as propositions to be argued in debate rather than necessarily representing Luther's opinions, but Luther later clarified his views in the Explanations of the Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences.
Luther sent the Theses enclosed with a letter to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, on 31 October 1517, a date now considered the start of the Reformation and commemorated annually as Reformation Day. Luther may have also posted the Ninety-five Theses on the door of All Saints' Church and other churches in Wittenberg—in accordance with University custom—on 31 October or in mid-November. The Theses were quickly reprinted and translated, and distributed throughout Germany and Europe. They initiated a pamphlet war with the indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel, which spread Luther's fame even further. Luther's ecclesiastical superiors had him tried for heresy, which culminated in his excommunication in 1521. Though the Theses were the start of the Reformation, Luther did not consider indulgences to be as important as other theological matters which would divide the church, such as justification by faith alone and the bondage of the will. His breakthrough on these issues would come later, and he did not see the writing of the Theses as the point at which his beliefs diverged from those of the Roman Catholic Church.
Martin Luther (1529) by Lucas Cranach the Elder
