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The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens completes an altarpiece in Rome
During this first stay in Rome, Rubens completed his first altarpiece commission, St. Helena with the True Cross for the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. -
Period: to
the thirty years war
The Thirty Years' War was a war fought in Central Europe, in which most of the major European powers of the time were involved. This war marked the future of Europe as a whole for centuries to come. -
Diego Velazquez becomes court painter to the king of Spain
In August 1623, Velázquez was once again in Madrid. He took up his palette and brushes and set about portraying the monarch himself. The result was satisfactory, and in October the artist was appointed painter to the King. -
Diego Velazquez paints his only surviving female nude
The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. Nudes were extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art,[6] which was policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition. -
The symphony begins to develop as a musical form, deriving from the overtures of operas
In the early 18th century, Czech composer Johann Stamitz wrote and conducted several sonatas for the famous Mannheim orchestra, extending the sonata form to four movements, thus creating the blueprint of the symphony.