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Timeline |
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RENAISSANCE |
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RENAISSANCE > Website 
"Renaissance," French for "rebirth," perfectly describes the intellectual and economic changes that occurred in Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. During the era known by this name, Europe emerged from the economic stagnation of the Middle Ages and experienced a time of financial growth. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the Renaissance was an age in which artistic, social, scientific, and political thought turned in new directions.
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The Age of Exploration
The desire to explore the unknown has been a driving force in human history since the dawn of time. From the earliest documented accounts, ancient civilizations have explored the earth by sea. Early adventurers were motivated by religious beliefs, th... |
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Marco Polo, Travels to China
Marco Polo, is probably the most famous Westerner traveled on the Silk Road. He excelled all the other travelers in his determination, his writing, and his influence. His journey through Asia lasted 24 years. He reached further than any of his predec... |
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Petrarch, Poet
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), Italian scholar, poet, and humanist, a major force in the development of the Renaissance, famous for his poems addressed to Laura, an idealized beloved whom he met in 1327 and who died in 1348. Attempts have been made... |
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Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was a Italian author and poet, the greatest of Petrarch's disciples, an important Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notable works including On Famous Women, the Decameron and his poems in the vernacula... |
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Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV, born Wenceslaus, of the House of Luxembourg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death. He was the eldest son and heir of John the Blind, from whom he inherited Luxembourg and Bohemia on 26 August 1346. He was elected King of Germa... |
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Hongwu, Founder Ming Dynasty
The Hongwu Emperor, personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, was the founder and first emperor 1368-1398 of the Ming Dynasty of China. His era name, Hongwu, means "Immensely Martial." The previous Mongol Yuan Dynasty was perceived as "foreign", and the Chinese h... |
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The 100 Years War
Fighting started in the Hundred Years' War because the Kings of England - descendants of William the Conqueror who still spoke French -wanted to rule France as well. France was temptingly weak and divided. It began with the English King Edward III... |
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Chaucer, Father of English Poetry
Geoffrey Chaucer, author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat. Chaucer is best known as the author of The Canterbury Tales. He is sometimes credited with being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacul... |
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The Black Death in Europe
The Black Death was one of the worst natural disasters in history. In 1347 A.D., a great plague swept over Europe and ravaged cities causing widespread hysteria and death. One third of the population of Europe died. "The impact upon the future of... |
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Yongle, 3rd Emperor Ming Dynasty
The Yongle Emperor, born Zhu Di, was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China from 1402 to 1424. His era name means "Perpetually Jubilant". His usurpation of the throne is now sometimes called the "Second Founding" of the Ming. He is generally... |
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Zheng He, the Chinese Admiral
In 1405, Zheng was chosen to lead the biggest naval expedition in history up to that time. Over the next 28 years (1405-1433), he commanded seven fleets that visited 37 countries, through Southeast Asia to faraway Africa and Arabia. In those years, C... |
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Jeanne d'Arc ( Joan of Arc )
Joan of Arc, in French, Jeanne d'Arc, also called the Maid of Orleans, a patron saint of France and a national heroine, led the resistance to the English invasion of France in the Hundred Years War. When Joan was about 12 years old, she began hearing... |
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Mehmed II, The Conqueror
Mehmed II (1432-1481), nicknamed the conqueror, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire a short time in 1444 to 1446, and from 1451 to 1481. Mehmed II brought an end to the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinople in 1453 (during the well-known Sieg... |
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Columbus, Discovers America - 1492
Christopher Columbus departed on his first voyage from the port of Palos (near Huelva) in southern Spain, on August 3, 1492, in command of three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. His crew mostly came from surrounding towns such as Lepe... |
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Isabella, Queen of Spain
Isabella of Castile, who helped unify Spain via a dynastic marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469, was a master of propaganda to secure her rule. Although Isabella was a strong personality, she had a difficult path to power. She had a disputed su... |
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Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scient... |
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The Fall of Constantinople
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May 1453... |
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Vasco Da Gama, Sails to India - 1498
Vasco da Gama is famous for his completion of the first all water trade route between Europe and India. Da Gama’s father, Estavao, had originally been chosen by King Joao II to make this historic voyage, but he died before he could complete the miss... |
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Albrecht Durer
Albrecht Duerer was without doubt the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. Living in Nuremberg, half-way between the Netherlands and Italy, he found inspiration in the work of painters of both the major European artistic centres of his time.... |
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Copernicus, Earth moves around the Sun
Nicolaus Copernicus was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Sp... |
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Michelangelo Buonarroti
He is one of the greatest artists of all time, a man whose name has become synonymous with the word "masterpiece": Michelangelo Buonarroti. As an artist he was unmatched, the creator of works of sublime beauty that express the full breadth of the hum... |
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Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest and professor of theology who initiated the Protestant Reformation. Strongly disputing the claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money, he confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetz... |
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Cortez, Conqueror of Mexico - 1519
Hernando Cortez was the Spanish conqueror of Mexico. He also wiped out the Aztec Empire. Cortez was born in 1485 in Medellin, Extremadura. His parents were of small Spanish nobility. In 1499, when Cortez was 14 he attended the University of Salamanca... |
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Henry VIII of England, Tudor
Henry VIII was King of England and Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) from 22 April 1509 until his death. He was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. He is famous for having been married six times and for wi... |
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REFORMATION
The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of several other Christian churches, most importantly Lutheranism, Refo... |
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Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor from 1519-1558; he was also King of Spain from 1516-1556, officially as Charles I of Spain, although often referred to as Charles V ("Carlos Quinto" or "Carlos V") in Spain and Latin America. He was the son of Philip... |
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Pope Gregory XIII, Gregorian Calendar
Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585). Pius V's successor was born at Bologna. He studied law at the famous university of his native city. At twenty-eight he graduated as a doctor with sufficient distinction become a professor of law in his own university. H... |
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Frescoes Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo
Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel frescoed earlier by Piero Matteo d'Amelia with a star-spangled sky. The work was completed between 1508 and 1512. He painted the Last Ju... |
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John Calvin, Theologian
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 sudden... |
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Philip II of Spain
Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal, was born at Valladolid, the only son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great deal of p... |
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Ivan the Terrible, The First Tsar
Ivan IV Vasilyevich, known in English as Ivan the Terrible, was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533. The epithet "Grozny" is associated with might, power and strictness, rather than horror or cruelty. Ivan oversaw numerous changes in the transition from... |
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Sir Francis Drake
Drake was, essentially, the greatest of all the Elizabethan sailors: a man ready for any adventure, beloved and followed by his men, yet absolute master on his own deck. A man, moreover, of the highest practical intelligence in all walks of life and,... |
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Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, queen of Scots was one of the most fascinating and controversial monarchs of 16th century Europe. At one time, she claimed the crowns of four nations - Scotland, France, England and Ireland. Her physical beauty and kind heart were acknowledged... |
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Miguel de Cervantes, Creator Don Quixote
Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote, the most famous figure in Spanish literature.
Miguel de Cervantes, born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547, was the son of a surgeon who presented himself as a nobleman, although Cerv... |
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James I, King of Scots (VI) and England
James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley. He was less than a year old when he saw his mother for the last time, and thirteen months old when he was crowned King of Scots in Stirling after her forced abdicat... |
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Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, of the house of Habsburg, ruled 1620-1637. Originally Archduke of Styria, his appointment as King of Bohemia was one of the causes of the Thirty Years' War. He was also the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire during mos... |
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ENLIGHTENMENT
The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in 18th-century Europe. The goal of the Enlightenment was to establish an authoritative ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge based on an "enlightened" rationality. The movement's leaders viewed thems... |
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Who • What • When • Where • Which |
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