The Renaissance

By Adam.L
  • Jan 1, 1449

    Birth of Lorenzo de’ Medici

    the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy.
  • 1455

    Gutenberg prints the first Bible

    The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe.
  • 1500

    King Henry VIII begins Protestant Anglican church

    King Henry VIII begins Protestant Anglican church
  • 1501

    Michelangelo sculpts the David

    In 1501 Michelangelo was commissioned to create the David by the Arte della ... more than 12,000 pounds, yet it is sculpted from a single block of white marble.
  • 1503

    Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa

    The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that 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".
  • 1517

    Martin Luther posts 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church

    On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
  • Jun 16, 1532

    Thomas More writes Utopia

    Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532.
  • 1543

    Nicolas Copernicus publishes On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres

    De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), written by Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) and published just before his death, placed the sun at the center of the universe and argued that the Earth moved across the heavens as one of the planets.
  • 1564

    William Shakespeare is born

    April 1564,

  • Galileo invents a thermometer

    Although named after the 16th–17th-century physicist Galileo, the thermometer described in this article was not invented by him. Galileo did invent a thermometer, called Galileo's air thermometer (more accurately termed a thermoscope), in or before 1603.