Pre 1400
1347: Black Death ravages Europe for the first time.1374: Death of Petrarch.
1396: Creation of Chair of Greek in Florence: teacher Chrysoloras brings a copy of Ptolemy’s Geography.
1397: Giovanni de Medici moves to Florence.
1400 - 1450
1400: Burni: Panegyric to the City of Florence.1401: Ghiberti awarded commission to create doors for the baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence; Brunelleschi and Donatello travel to Rome; birth of painter Masaccio.
1417 – 36: Brunelleschi works on dome of Florence Cathedral.
1420: The newly united Papacy moves back to Rome.
1423: Forsari become Doge in Venice.
1429: Cosimo de Medici inherits the family bank and rises to great power in Florence.
1432: Van Eycks: The Adoration of the Lamb.
1435: Alberti: On Painting.
1440: Valla uses humanist skills to expose Donation of Constantine as forgery.
1444: Alberti: On the Family.
1446: Death of Brunelleschi.
1447: Pope Nicholas V appointed, he begins a major program of rebuilding.
1450: Francesco Sforza takes power in Milan.
1451-1500
1452: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci.1453: Ottoman conquest of Constantinople: many Greek thinkers and works travel westward; end of Hundred Years War: stability returns to north-west Europe.
1454: The Gutenberg Bible published; print revolutionises European literacy.
1459: Gozzoli: Adoration of the Magi.
1465: Bellini and Mantegna: The Agony in the Garden
1469: Lorenzo de Medici, “The Magnificent”, takes power in Florence; his rule is considered the high point of the Florentine Renaissance.
1470: Malory: Morte d’Arthur.
1471: Sixtus IV appointed Pope. Major building continues in Rome, including the Sistine Chapel.
1474: Ficino: Platonic Theory.
1480: Botticelli: Primavera.
1483 Pico: 900 Treatises; he is declared a heretic but protected by the Medici.
1485: Alberti: On Building. Italian architects travel to Russia to aid in rebuilding of Kremlin.
1488: Portuguese sailors led by Bartolomeu Diaz round the Cape of Good Hope.
1492: Buonarroti: Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs; Rodrigo Borgia appointed Pope, his rule is considered a reign of corruption; Columbus sails west; Behaim’s globe created.
1494: Pacioli: Everything About Arithmetic, Geometry and Proportion.
1494 – 95: Rule of Savonarola in Florence; he is burnt as a heretic; Italian Wars, France invade.
1498: Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper; Portuguese sailors led by Vasco de Gama reach India.
1499: French conquer Milan, facilitating greater passage of Renaissance ideas into the France.
1500: Michelangelo: Pieta; Giorgine: Tempesta; Portuguese “discover” Brazil.
1501 - 1550
1503: Pope Julius II appointed Pope; start of “Roman Golden Age”.1504: Michelangelo: David; Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights.
1505: Leonardo: Mona Lisa; Dürer travels to Italy.
1506 – 1615: Work on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
1508 – 12: Michelangelo paints roof of the Sistine Chapel.
1509: Henry VIII succeeds to power in England.
1511: Erasmus: Praise of Folly.
1512: Erasmus: De Copia.
1513: Machiavelli: The Prince.
1515: Francis I takes power in France.
1516: Eramus: New Testament; More: Utopia; Castiglione: Book of the Courtier; Charles V takes power in Spain, followed by his accession to the Holy Roman throne.
1517: Start of the Reformation, heavily influenced by Humanist thinking.
1519: Death of Leonardo de Vinci.
1520: Süleyman “the Magnficent” takes power in the Ottoman Empire.
1524: Raphael: Donation of Constantine.
1525: Dürer: A Course in the Art of Measurement; Battle of Pavia between France and the Holy Roman Empire: end of French claims on Italy.
1527: Sack of Rome by Imperial forces.
1529: Ribeiro: World Map.
1532: Rabelais: Pantagruel.
1533: Holbein: The Ambassadors; Regiomontanus: On Triangles.
1536: Paracelsus: Great Book of Surgery; Death of Erasmus.
1541: Michelangelo: The Last Judgement.
1543: Copernicus: Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits/ De Revolutionibus; Vesalius: On the Fabric of the Human Body.
1544: Bandello: Novelle.
1550+
1555: Labé: Euvres; Peace of Augsburg brings legal co-existence of Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.1556: Tartaglia: A General Treatise on Numbers and Measurement; Agricola: De Re Metallica; Philip II takes power in Spain as Charles V abdicates.
1558: Elizabeth I succeeds to the throne in England: start of the English “Golden Age”.
1564: Death of Michelangelo.
1567: Whitney: The Copy of a Letter.
1569: Mercator: World Map.
1570: Palladio: Four Books on Architecture; Ortelius: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
1571: Battle of Lepanto.
1572: Camõs: The Lusiads; St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestants in France.
1580: Montaigne: Essays.
1590: Spenser: The Faerie Queen.
1603: Shakespeare: Hamlet.
1605: Cervantes: Don Quixote.
