Jan van Scorel was an influential Dutch painter credited with the introduction of High Italian Renaissance art to the Netherlands. It is not known whether he began his studies under Jan Gossaert in Utrecht or with Jacob Cornelisz in Amsterd...

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propag...

Da Vinci's Last Supper has become one of the most widely appreciated masterpieces in the world. It began to acquire its unique reputation immediately after it was finished in 1498 and its prestige has never diminished. Despite the many c...

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre (17.0 ft) marble statue of the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence....

Agnolo di Cosimo, usually known as Il Bronzino, or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. The origin of his nickname, Bronzino is unknown, but could derive from his dark complexion, or from that he gave many of his...

Andrea Palladio was an Italian architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architec...

In Praise of Folly (Encomiun Moriae in Latin) was written in 1509 by the Dutchman Erasmus of Rotterdam when he was guest to his English famous friend Thomas More,or Morus if you prefer, the author of the celebrated book Utopia. Given intern...

Diego Ortiz was a Spanish composer and musicologist, in service to the Spanish viceroy of Naples and later to Philip II of Spain. Ortiz published influential treatises on both instrumental and vocal performance. Very little is known abou...

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing. Vasari was born in Arezzo, Tuscany. Recomm...

Hadrianus Junius, also known as Adriaen de Jonghe, was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer, antiquarian, historiographer, emblematist, school rector, and Latin poet. Junius was dubbed a 'second Erasmus' by some o...

Juan Bautista de Toledo, Spanish architect educated in Italy, in the Italian High Renaissance. As many Italian renaissance architects, he had experience in both architecture and military and civil public works. Perhaps he started his caree...

The principle of a list of forbidden books was adopted at the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515, then confirmed by the Council of Trent in 1546. The first edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, dated 1557 was published by Pope Paul IV. T...

Tintoretto was an Italian painter and a notable exponent of the Venetian Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. His work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use o...

Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and dr...

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From...