Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian composer of Renaissance music. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. Palestrina had a vast influence on the development of Roman C...

Giovanni Maria Artusi was an Italian theorist, composer, and writer. Artusi was one of the most famous reactionaries in musical history, fiercely condemning the new style developing around 1600, the innovations of which defined the early Ba...

William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music....

El Greco was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname, a reference to his Greek origin. El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the c...

Saint John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) was a major figure in the Catholic Reformation, a Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar born at Fontiveros, a small village near Ávila. He is renowned for his cooperation with Saint Teresa of Avila...

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...

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...

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...

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England. He rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I, and was knighted in 1585. H...

Giovanni Gabrieli is an important transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque eras and their associated musical styles. The distinctive sound of his music derived in part from his association with St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice,...

Hendrik Goltzius was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the "exuberance" of his compositions. According...

John Bull was an English organist and composer, renowned for his knowledge of strict counterpoint. He was probably born in Hereford, where he obtained the post of organist at a young age. He quickly advanced to the positions of Gentleman of...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, generally considered the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, is by far the most important member of the family. He was probably born in Breda in the Duchy of Brabant, now in The Netherlands. Accepted as a...

El Escorial is a historical residence of the king of Spain. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and school. It is located about 45 kilometres (28 miles) northwest of the Spanish capital,...

John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" (the basis for Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal), "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady...