The question of when to begin and when to end a chronological list of major events of the Renaissance is as open to debate as the scope and significance of the Renaissance itself. In addition, the development of the Protestant Reformation from 1517 creates a whole new set of problems in defining the age. The following list includes only a few major events of the Reformation, since those events are treated fully in another Scarecrow Press historical dictionary. Landmarks in the history of art are included from the late 13 th century to the early 17th century. The rather arbitrary starting date is 1250, the death of the last Holy Roman Emperor to have significant political authority in Italy. The terminal events (which, like the condemnation of Copernican astronomy and the imprisonment of Galileo, might well be regarded as part of a post-Renaissance age) are the English civil wars of the 1640s and the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. Some dates in the list are approximate.
1250 Death of Emperor Frederick II; most of northern and central Italy is left de facto independent
1267 Guelf party gains permanent control of Florence 1293 Ordinances of Justice (Florentine constitution) 1296-1300 Giotto’s frescoes at Assisi, life of St. Francis 1297 Closure of Great Council at Venice
1303 Dante, De vulgari eloquentia
1304 Birth of Petrarch
1305-1306 Giotto’s frescoes in Arena Chapel at Padua
1305-1377 "Babylonian Captivity" of papacy; popes reside at Avignon, 1309-1377 1321 Death of Dante
1337 Petrarch begins writing De viris illustribus; beginning of Hundred Years’ War
1341 Petrarch crowned poet laureate at Rome
1343 Approximate onset of 14th-century depression; Florentines defeat attempt by wealthy families to set up a dictatorship
1343-1382 Democratizing reforms at Florence
1347 Cola di Rienzo leads "Roman Revolution" against papal rule of Rome
1348-1350 Black Death strikes most parts of Europe
1360 Treaty of Brétigny suspends large-scale conflict during Hundred Years’ War; skirmishes continue
1374 Death of Petrarch
1375 Coluccio Salutati appointed chancellor of Florence 1378 Ciompi rebellion at Florence
1378-1402 Giangaleazzo Visconti, duke of Milan
1378-1417 Western Schism divides European Christian churches
1381-1391 Coluccio Salutati, De laboribus Herculis
1382 Greater guilds stage coup d’état at Florence; end of democratizing reforms; restoration of control by greater guilds
1397-1400 Manuel Chrysoloras teaches Greek at Florence
1403 Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio Florentinae urbis
1409 Council of Pisa fails in effort to end Schism
1414-1418 Council of Constance
1415 Leonardo Bruni writes first part of History of the Florentine People; Henry V of England resumes Hundred Years’ War
1417 Council of Constance elects Martin V as pope, ending Western Schism
1423 Vittorino da Feltre establishes humanistic court school at Mantua
1425-1427 Masaccio’s frescoes, Brancacci Chapel at Florence
1425-1430 Donatello, bronze statue of David
1427 Leonardo Bruni appointed chancellor of Florence
1429 Guarino Guarini establishes humanistic court school at Ferrara
1432 Jan van Eyck completes Ghent Altarpiece
1434 Cosimo de’ Medici returns from exile and establishes Medici political control of Florence
1435 Leon Battista Alberti, The Elements of Painting
1440 Lorenzo Valla, The Elegances of the Latin Language; Declamation on the Forged and Deceitful Donation of Constantine
1447 Death of Filippo Maria, last Visconti duke of Milan
1450 Francesco Sforza becomes duke of Milan
1453 Fall of Constantinople to Turks; end of Hundred Years’ War
1454 Peace of Lodi ends Milanese succession crisis
1454-1455 "Gutenberg Bible" printed at Mainz
1456 Peter Luder returns from Italy; lectures on humanism at University of Heidelberg
1469 Marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon opens way for unification of Spain
1477 The Rash, last duke of Burgundy, killed in battle with Swiss
1478 Pope Sixtus IV founds Spanish Inquisition at request of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
1479 Rudolf Agricola returns from Italy to Germany, writes De inven-tione dialectica
1484 Marsilio Ficino, Latin translation of Plato’s works
1485 Henry Tudor defeats Richard III in battle of Bosworth 1485-1509 Henry VII, first Tudor king of England
1489 Angelo Poliziano, Miscellaneorum centuria prima
1490 Aldus Manutius establishes Aldine press at Venice
1492 Spanish conquest of kingdom of Granada; expulsion of Jews from Spain; Columbus lands at San Salvador in West Indies; Elio Antonio Nebrija, Gramática . . . sobre la lengua castellana
1494 French invasion of Italy, conquest of Naples; expulsion of Medici from Florence
1494-1495 Albrecht Dürer’s first trip to Italy
1495 Spain and Italian allies drive French out of Italy
1495-1497 Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper
1498 Savonarola burned as a heretic at Florence; Vasco da Gama lands at Calicut in India; Louis XII renews French invasion of Italy
1499-1512 Machiavelli heads second chancery of Florence
1501-1504 Michelangelo, David
1503 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; Erasmus, Enchridion of the Christian Soldier
1506 Donato Bramante designs new St. Peter’s basilica
1508-1512 Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel frescoes
1509 Lefèvre d’Etaples, Quincuplex Psalterium; instruction commences at University of Alcalá; Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (first edition, 1511)
1509-1546 Henry VIII, king of England
1510-1511 Raphael, The School of Athens
1512 Spanish troops restore Medici control of Florence 1512-1517 Fifth Lateran Council
1513 Machiavelli, The Prince (first edition in 1532); Albrecht Dürer’s engravings Knight, Death, and Devil and St. Jerome in His Study
1515 Publication of Rudolf Agrícola, De inventione dialectica; Letters of Obscure Men published
1515-1547 Francis I, king of France
1516 Erasmus edits Greek New Testament; Thomas More, Utopia
1517 Foundation of Collegium Trilingue at Louvain; Martin Luther, Ninety-five Theses
1518-1533 Andrea Alciati develops humanistic approach to teaching law (mos gallicus) at Avignon and Bourges
1521 Diet of Worms; Martin Luther refuses to recant
1524 Erasmus, On Freedom of the Will, attacks Luther
1524-1534 Michelangelo, tomb of Giuliano de’Medici
1527 "Sack of Rome" by imperial/Spanish army; Florentine people rebel against Medici control
1528 Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier
1530 Francis I appoints first Royal Lecturers on humanistic subjects; Spanish army forces Florence to surrender; Medici rule restored
1531 Andrea Alciati, Book of Emblems
1532 Florentine republic abolished; Alessandro de’Medici becomes duke of Florence; Rabelais, Pantagruel
1534 Rabelais, Gargantua; Act of Supremacy recognizes Henry VIII as head of church in England
1534-1541 Michelangelo, Last Judgment
1542 Pope Paul III issues bull Licet ab initio, founding Roman Inquisition
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica
1546 Titian, Pope Paul III and His Grandsons
1546-1564 Michelangelo designs dome and central plan of St. Peter’s basilica at Rome
1549 Joachim du Bellay, Défense et illustration de la langue française
1550 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors
1555 Religious Peace of Augsburg recognizes legal status of Evangelical (Lutheran) religion in Germany
1556-1598 Philip II, king of Spain
1559 Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis: France acknowledges Spanish hegemony in Italy
1559-1603 Elizabeth I, queen of England
1562 Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Peasant Wedding
1562-1598 French Wars of Religion
1580 Montaigne, Essays.
1585 Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poetry
1586 El Greco, The Burial of Count Orgaz
1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada
1589 Henry III, last Valois king of France, murdered 1589-1610 Henry IV, first Bourbon king of France
1590 Posthumous publication of Philip Sidney, Arcadia
1599-1602 Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew
1599-1607 William Shakespeare produces his major tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth)
1603 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
1603-1625 James I, first Stuart king of England
1607-1615 Carlo Maderno, nave and façade of St. Peter’s
1608 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, part 1; part 2, 1615
1616 Roman Inquisition declares Copernican astronomy heretical 1618-1648 Thirty Years’ War in Germany
1632 Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World; Roman Inquisition compels Galileo to recant, imposes house arrest for life
1642-1649 English civil wars; abolition of monarchy
1648 Peace of Westphalia ends Thirty Years’ War
