Paul III, Alessandro Farnese was Pope from 1534 to 1549. He also called the Council of Trent in 1545. Born Alessandro Farnese in Canino, Latium, Italy, the peculiar day of February 29, he was descended through his mother from the Caetani fa...

Selim I, also known as "the Excellent," "the Brave" or the best translation "the Stern", Yavuz in Turkish, the long name is Yavuz Sultan Selim; was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. He was also the first Ottoman Sultan to...

Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam was a prominent member of the Knights Hospitaller at Rhodes and later Malta. Having risen to the position of Prior of the Langue of Auvergne, he was elected Grand Master of the Order in 1521. He commanded th...

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...

Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil (a Spanish corruption of the name Abu Abdullah), was the twenty-second and last Nasrid ruler of Granada in Iberia. He was also called el chico, the little, or el zogoybi, the unfortunate. Son of Abu l-Hasan Al...

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figu...

Pope Julius II, nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope". During his nine-year pontificate his military and diplomatic interventions averted a take-over by France of the Italian States (including the Papal States). He also p...

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...

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...

Pope Eugene IV, born Gabriele Condulmer, was pope from 3 March 1431 until his death. Eugene IV was dignified in demeanour, but inexperienced and vacillating in action and excitable in temper. Bitter in his hatred of heresy, he nevertheless...

Thomas is the great author of the world famous book, "The Imitation of Christ." His name will be remembered until the end of time, because of this famous work. Priests, nuns, and lay people have used it for hundreds of years, and it has hel...

Jan Hus, sometimes Anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, Master, dean and rector at Charles University in Prague, church reformer, founder of Hussitism, a seminal figure in the Bohemian Reformation and a key...

Martin V, pope (1417–31), a Roman named Oddone Colonna; successor of Gregory XII. He was created cardinal by Innocent VII, and in the schism he attended and supported the decisions of the Council of Pisa. His election (Nov. 11, 1417) by the...

Saint Catherine of Siena was a tertiary of the Dominican Order and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Ita...

Geert Groote, otherwise Gerrit or Gerhard Groet, in Latin Gerardus Magnus, was a Dutch preacher and founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. In 1366 he visited the papal court at Avignon. About this time he was appointed to a canonry in...