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Period: Sep 1, 1266 to Jan 8, 1337
Giotto
was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages. He is generally considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, also known as the Arena Chapel, completed around 1305. This fresco cycle depicts the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Early Renaissance. -
Period: Jan 1, 1297 to Jan 1, 1460
Age of Portuguese Exploration and Expansion
The Age of Discovery is a historical period of European global exploration that started in the early 15th century with the first Portuguese discoveries in the Atlantic archipelagos and Africa -
Period: Jul 20, 1304 to Jul 19, 1374
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. -
Period: Jan 1, 1330 to Jan 1, 1550
Italian Renissance
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Period: Jan 1, 1386 to Dec 13, 1466
Donatello
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian sculptor from Florence.
Works: David (1440), Judith and Holofernes (1460), Penitent Magdalene (1455) -
Period: Mar 4, 1394 to Nov 13, 1460
Henry the Navigator
was an important figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and the Age of Discoveries. He was the fifth child of the Portuguese king John I and responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. -
Period: Jun 28, 1419 to Jan 28, 1547
Henry VIII
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later assumed the Kingship, of Ireland, and continued the nominal claim by English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII.
Besides his six marriages, Henry VIII is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the pope and the Roman Catholic Church. -
Jan 1, 1433
Gutenberg's Printing Press
A printing press is a device for evenly printing ink onto a print medium (substrate) such as paper or cloth. The device applies pressure to a print medium that rests on an inked surface made of movable type, thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as among the most influential events in human history, revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering modernity -
May 29, 1453
Ottoman Takeover of Constantinople
was the capture of the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on Tuesday, 29 May 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated an army commanded by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. The conquest of Constantinople followed a seven-week siege that had begun on Friday, 6 April 1453.
The capture of Constantinople marked the end of the Roman Empire -
Period: Jan 1, 1465 to Aug 11, 1519
Tetzel
Johann Tetzel was a Roman Catholic German Dominican friar and preacher. In addition, he was a Grand Inquisitor of Heresy to Poland, and later became the Grand Commissioner for indulgences in Germany.Tetzel was reputedly known for granting indulgences in exchange for money, which allow a remission of temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven, a position heavily challenged by Martin Luther. -
Period: May 3, 1469 to Jun 21, 1527
Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance.
Books: The Prince (1532), Discourses on Livy (1531), The Art of War (1521), Life of Castruccio Castracani (1520), Florentine Histories (1532) -
Period: Mar 6, 1475 to Feb 18, 1564
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.
Works: Sistine Chapel ceiling (1512), David (1504), Pietà (1499), The Last Judgment (1541), The Creation of Adam (1512) -
Period: Jan 1, 1483 to Apr 6, 1520
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance.
Works: The Marriage of the Virgin (1504), The School of Athens (1509), Sistine Madonna (1512), Saint George and the Dragon (1506), The Trasfiguration (1520) -
Period: Nov 10, 1483 to Feb 18, 1546
Luther
Martin Luther OSA was a German friar, Catholic priest, professor of theology and seminal figure of the 16th-century movement in Christianity known later as the Protestant Reformation.He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with monetary values. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman -
Period: Jan 1, 1484 to Oct 11, 1531
Zwingli
Huldrych Zwingliwas a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly centre of humanism. He continued his studies while he served as a pastor in Glarus and later in Einsiedeln, where he was influenced by the writings of Erasmus. -
Period: Aug 22, 1485 to Apr 21, 1509
Henry VII
Henry VII ( 28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry won the throne when his forces defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle. Henry cemented his claim by marrying Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and niece of Richard III. Hen -
Period: Oct 23, 1491 to Jul 30, 1556
Ignatius of Loyola
was a Spanish knight from a local Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and, on 19 April 1541, became its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation. Loyola's devotion to the Catholic Church was characterized by absolute obedience to the Pope -
Jan 1, 1492
Spain-Granada conquered
was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos) Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending Islamic rule, Al-Andalus, on the Iberian peninsula and completing the Reconquista. -
Jan 1, 1492
Spain- Columbus
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Jan 1, 1492
Spain- Expulsion of Jews
the entire Jewish community, some 200,000 people, were expelled from Spain. The Jews' expulsion had been the pet project of the Spanish Inquisition, headed by Father Tomas de Torquemada. -
Period: Jan 1, 1492 to Jan 1, 1550
Age of Spanish Exploration and Expansion
The discovery of America by Spain in 1492. Rumors of undiscovered islands northwest of Hispaniola had reached Spain by 1511 and king Ferdinand II of Aragon was interested in forestalling further exploration. -
Period: Apr 15, 1492 to May 2, 1519
Da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian (High) Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer.
Works: Mona Lisa (1517), The Last Supper (1498), Virgin of the Rocks (1486), Ginevra de' Benci (1478), The Baptism of Christ (1475), Vitruvian Man (1490) -
Period: Sep 12, 1494 to Mar 31, 1547
Francis I
was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled France from 1515 until his death. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his cousin and father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a male heir. A prodigal patron of the arts, he initiated the French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists to work on the Château de Chambord, including da Vinci. Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the rise of absolute monarchy, humanism, patrionirism, exp. -
Oct 1, 1494
French Invade Italy
In October 1494, Ludovico Sforza, who had long controlled the Duchy of Milan, finally procured the ducal title after providing a hitherto unheard-of dowry to his niece, who was marrying the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian. He was immediately challenged by Alfonso II, who also had a claim on Milan. Ludovico decided to remove this threat by inciting Charles to take up Innocent's offer. Charles was also being encouraged by his favorite, Étienne de Vesc, as well as by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, -
Period: Feb 24, 1500 to Sep 21, 1558
Charles V
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I as Holy Roman Emperor and his son Philip II as King of Spain in 1556. Charles had a very complicated coat of arms. He was the heir of three of Europe's leading dynasties, the House of Habsburg of the Habsburg Monarchy, the House of Valois-Burgundy of the Burgundian Netherlands, and the House of Trastámara -
Period: Sep 1, 1500 to
Northern Renissance
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Jan 1, 1509
“The School Of Athens”
The School of Athens, or Scuola di Atene in Italian, is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. -
Period: Jul 10, 1509 to May 29, 1564
Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Base -
Jan 1, 1513
The Prince
The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics. responsible for bringing the word "Machiavellian" into usage as a pejorative. It also helped make "Old Nick" an English term for the devil. -
Period: Mar 28, 1515 to
Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, an author of the Counter Reformation and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be a founder of the Discalced Carmelites along with John of the Cross. -
Jan 1, 1517
95 Theses
were written by Martin Luther in 1517 and are widely regarded as the initial catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. The disputation protests against clerical abuses, especially nepotism, simony, usury, pluralism, and the sale of indulgences. -
Period: Jan 1, 1517 to
Reformation
Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation came deep and lasting political changes. Northern Europe’s new religious and political freedoms came at a great cost, with decades of rebellions, wars and bloody persecutions -
Period: Jan 1, 1517 to Jan 1, 1524
Growth of Lutheranism
At Wittenberg the iconoclasts under Carlstadt had instituted radical changes that Luther greatly deplored. -
Jan 1, 1543
Copernicus’ On the Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies
is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). The book, first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire, offered an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system, which had been widely accepted since ancient times. -
Period: Jan 1, 1545 to
Catholic Reformation / Counter-Reformation
was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648), and was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of four major elements:
Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration
Religious orders
Spiritual movements
Political dimensions -
Period: Jan 1, 1545 to Jan 1, 1563
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento (Trent) and Bologna, northern Italy, was one of the Roman Catholic Church's most important ecumenical councils. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. -
Jan 1, 1555
Peace of Augsburg
The Peace of Augsburg, also called the Augsburg Settlement, was a treaty between Charles V and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes, on September 25, 1555, at the imperial city of Augsburg, now in present-day Bavaria, Germany. -
Period: Jan 1, 1555 to
Growth of Calvinism
Calvin did not want his belief to be restricted to just one area and he did not want Geneva to become a refuge place for fleeing Protestants.
The city was to be the heart that pumped Calvinism to all of Europe. This spread was to be based on a new educational system which was established in Geneva. Both primary and secondary schools were created and in 1559 the Academy was established which was to become the University of Geneva. Geneva was/is French speaking and Calvin spoke French. -
Oct 1, 1555
Charles V Abdication
The Emperor’s health began to fail in his mid-forties and he suffered agonies from gout. He had been considering abdication long before it became clear, in the 1550s, that Protestantism in Germany would have to be tolerated. It was not something he could accept. He handed the running of the Holy Roman Empire over to his brother Ferdinand in 1554, and in October 1555, in the Hall of the Golden Fleece in Brussels, he resigned the sovereignty of the Netherlands to his son Philip of Spain. -
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
was a Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from A Coruña in August 1588, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England. The strategic aim was to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England and the Tudor establishment of Protestantism in England, with the expectation that this would put a stop to English interference in the Spanish Netherlands and to the harm caused to Spanish interests by English and Dutch privateering. -
Edict of Nantes passed by Henry IV
granted the Calvinist Protestants of France (Huguenots) substantial rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic. In the Edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity.The Edict separated civil from religious unity, treated some Protestants for the first time as more than mere schismatics and heretics, and opened a path for secularism and tolerance. In offering general freedom of conscience to individuals, the Edict offered many specific concessions to the Protestants. -
Elizabeth I of England died
the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII by second wife, Anne Boleyn -
Beginning of the 30 Years’ War
Initially, religion was a motivation for war as Protestant and Catholic states fought even though many of them were or had been members of the Holy Roman Empire—a situation which was not atypical of the Empire, which had become decentralized and fragmented following the death of Charlemagne (814 AD). Changing the relative balance of power within the Empire was at issue. Gradually, it developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe -
Charles I is executed and Cromwell came to power in England
Charles I was the first of our monarchs to be put on trial for treason and it led to his execution. This event is one of the most famous in Stuart England's history - and one of the most controversial. No law could be found in all England’s history that dealt with the trial of a monarch so the order setting up the court that was to try Charles was written by a Dutch lawyer called Issac Dorislaus
