Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1321
Dante Alighieri completes his epic poem
La divina commedia
(The Divine Comedy). The
Florentine poet, considered Italy's greatest literary figure, dies the same year.
1348
The Black Death (bubonic plague) wreaks havoc across Italy and much of the rest of west-
ern Europe. Florence is said to have lost three-quarters of its populace.
1506
Work starts on St Peter's Basilica, to a design by Donato Bramante, over the site of an
earlier basilica in Rome. Work would continue on Christendom's showpiece church until
1626.
1508-12
Pope Julius II commissions Michelangelo to paint the ceiling frescoes in the Sistine
Chapel. Michelangelo decides the context, and the central nine panels recount stories from
Genesis.
1534
The accession of Pope Paul III marks the beginning of the Counter-Reformation.
1582
Pope Gregory XIII replaces the Julian calendar (introduced by Julius Caesar) with the
modern-day Gregorian calendar. The new calendar adds the leap year to keep in line with
the seasons.
1600
Dominican monk and proud philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned alive at the stake in
Rome for heresy after eight years of trial and torture at the hands of the Inquisition.
1714
The War of the Spanish Succession ends forcing the Spanish to withdraw from Lombardy.
The Spanish Bourbons establish an independent Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
1805
Napoleon is proclaimed king of the newly constituted Kingdom of Italy, comprising most of
the northern half of the country. A year later he takes the Kingdom of Naples.
