René of Anjou also known as René I of Naples and Good King René (French Le bon roi René), was Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence (1434–1480), Count of Piedmont, Duke of Bar (1430–1480), Duke of Lorraine (1431–1453), King of Naples (1435–1442;...

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" (French: La Pucelle d'Orléans), is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War and was canonized as a Roman Catholic...

Alexander VI, (Rodrigo Borgia) pope 1492-1503, is the most memorable of the secular popes of the Renaissance. He was born at Xàtiva, València, Spain, and his father's surname was Lanzol or Llançol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or Bor...

Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo il Magnifico) by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, polit...

Frederick III of Saxony, also known as Frederick the Wise, was Elector of Saxony (from the House of Wettin) from 1486 to his death. Frederick was the son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony and his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Albert III, Duke of B...

Margaret of Austria was, by her two marriages, Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Savoy, and was appointed Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530. Margaret was born as the second child and only d...

Count Henry III of Nassau-Dillenburg-Dietz, Lord (from 1530 Baron) of Breda, Lord of the Lek, of Dietz, etc. was a count of the House of Nassau. He was the son of Count John V of Nassau-Dillenburg and Elisabeth of Hesse. His younger brother...

Ulrich Zwingli was a leader of the Swiss Reformation. While Germany struggled under the political and religious consequences of Luther's reform movement, the movement itself quickly spilled out of the German borders into neighboring Switzer...

Jacques Cartier was a French navigator who first explored and described the Gulf of St-Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named Canada. In 1534, Jacques Cartier set sail hoping to discover a western passage to the...

Pope Gregory XIII, born Ugo Boncompagni, was Pope from 13 May 1572 to his death in 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this...

Pope Saint Pius V was Pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman liturgy within the Latin Church. P...

Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst. She was a Duchess consort of Florence and a Duchess consort of Pa...

Louis of Nassau was the third son of William, Count of Nassau and Juliana of Stolberg, and the younger brother of Prince William of Orange Nassau. Louis was a key figure in the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain and a strongly convince...

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...

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epi...