John of Austria, Spanish admiral and general; illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was acknowledged in his father's will and was recognized by his half brother, Philip II of Spain. In 1569 he fought against the Morisco rebel...

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written. His influe...

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was a Dutch statesman, who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain. In 1586, Van Oldenbarnevelt was made Land's Advocate of the province of Holland, an office he held for 32 ye...

Giordano Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars w...

Vincenzo Scamozzi was a Venetian architect and a writer on architecture, active mainly in Vicenza and Republic of Venice area in the second half of the 16th century. He was perhaps the most important figure there between Andrea Palladio, w...

Born at Bruges in 1548; died at Leyden in 1620. He was for some years book-keeper in a business house at Antwerp; later he secured employment in the administration of the Franc of Bruges. After visiting Prussia, Poland, Sweden, and Norway h...

Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far as Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea in his first two voyages...

Charles IX (Swedish: Karl IX) was King of Sweden from 1604 until his death. He was the youngest son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife, Margaret Leijonhufvud, brother of Eric XIV and John III of Sweden, and uncle of Sigismund II...

John Napier was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He was the son of Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston. John Napier is most renowned as the discoverer of the logarithm. Napi...

Spenser was known to his contemporaries as 'the prince of poets', as great in English as Virgil in Latin. He left behind him masterful essays in every genre of poetry, from pastoral and elegy to epithalamion and epic. Although his prose tre...

Matteo Ricci was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God. Ricci started learning theology and law in a Roman Jesuit...

Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor as Rudolf II (1576-1612), King of Hungary as Rudolf (1572-1608), King of Bohemia as Rudolf II (1575-1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria as Rudolf V (1576-1608). He was a member of the Habsburg family. Rudolf's l...

Pope Paul V, born Camillo Borghese, was Pope from 16 May 1605 until his death. In Rome the Pope financed the completion of St. Peter's Basilica, and improved the Vatican Library. He restored the Aqua Traiana, an ancient Roman Aqueduct (name...

Petrus Plancius was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was soon recognized as an expert on the shipping routes to India. He strongly believed in the idea of a North East passage until the failure of Willem Barentsz's third v...

Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma, a favourite of Philip III of Spain, was the first of the validos ('most worthy') through whom the later Habsburg monarchs ruled. He was succeeded by Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Oli...