Renaissance and Reformation

Bembo, Pietro To Biography (Renaissance and Reformation)

Bembo, Pietro (1470-1547) Italian scholar, poet, and humanist Born at Venice, he was educated by Ermolao barbaro among others. He met the great scholar politian in 1491 and in the same year traveled to Messina to learn Greek from Constantine Lascaris. In 1493 he returned to Venice and edited Lascaris’s Greek grammar for the printer […]

Biondo, Flavio To Book trade (Renaissance and Reformation)

Biondo, Flavio (1392-1463) Italian historian and archeologist Born at Forli and educated at Cremona, he was caught up in the politics of the time and lived in exile in Imola, Fer-rara, and Venice until Pope Eugenius IV employed him in the papal Curia in 1433. Though he had little interest in the speculative side of […]

Bordone, Paris To Council of constance (Renaissance and Reformation)

Bordone, Paris (1500-1571) Italian painter Bordone came from a noble family at Treviso and was probably a pupil of titian and of giorgione in Venice. Although there is very little originality in his pictures Bor-done had a very successful career and was regarded as highly as Titian for the quality of his work and its […]

Brahe, Sophie To Brueghel, Pieter (Pieter Bruegel or Breughel) (Renaissance and Reformation)

Brahe, Sophie (1556-1643) Danish astronomer The younger sister of Tycho brahe, Sophie was unable, as a woman, to enter university, but studied mathematics, music, astrology, medicine, and alchemy with tutors at home. She learned astronomy at her brother’s observatory on Hven, assisting him in the study of eclipses and translating Latin texts on astrology into […]

Bruges (Flemish Brugge) To Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de (Renaissance and Reformation)

Bruges (Flemish Brugge) A city in the province of West Flanders, Belgium, situated a few miles from the coast, to which it is now linked by canals. The Flemish name, Brugge (bridge), is of Norse origin. The town was a trading center by 1000, the capital of Flanders, and chief residence of its counts. Although […]

Buxtorf, Johannes (I) To Calligraphy (Renaissance and Reformation)

Buxtorf, Johannes (I) (1564-1629) German Hebrew scholar The son of a Protestant minister, Buxtorf was born at and studied at Marburg and later at Geneva and Basle under beza. For 38 years from 1591 he occupied the chair of Hebrew at Basle, rejecting attractive offers from Saumur and Leyden. To the study of Hebrew Buxtorf […]

Calvaert, Denys (Dionisio Fiammingo) To Capponi family (Renaissance and Reformation)

Calvaert, Denys (Dionisio Fiammingo) (1540-1619) Flemish-born painter Calvaert emigrated from his native Antwerp as a young man and around 1560 he was studying in Bologna under Prospero Fontana. After a short spell in Rome in the early 1570s, working on the Vatican, Calvaert returned to spend the rest of his life in Bologna, where he […]

Capuchins To Cassoni (Renaissance and Reformation)

Capuchins A branch of the Franciscans founded in the 1520s by Matteo di Bassi of Urbino, who wished to return to the original austerity of the Franciscan rule. The habit, based on St. Francis’s own garb, includes the pointed cowl (capuche) that gives the order its name. Despite initial disapproval from other Franciscans, the Capuchin […]

Castellio, Sebastian (Sebastien Chateillon) To Centuriators of Magdeburg (Renaissance and Reformation)

Castellio, Sebastian (Sebastien Chateillon) (15151563) Savoyard teacher and translator Born at St.-Martin de Fresne, near Nantua, Castellio was educated at Lyons and kept a school for young gentlemen there. After reading calvin’s Institutio he went to Strasbourg in 1540, met the author, and was converted to the reformed religion. He was appointed rector of the […]

Ceramics To Chaucer, Geoffrey (Renaissance and Reformation)

Ceramics The technique of producing objects made of fired clay, which in the European Middle Ages and Renaissance could range from the purely practical (e.g. roof tiles) through decorative floor tiles and vessels to high art (e.g. the enameled terracotta sculptures of Luca della robbia). At the merely functional level, pottery was practiced wherever suitable […]