Lorenzo's Time


1449
1449: Lorenzo de' Medici "The Magnificent" was born in Florence. He was a patron of the arts and a political leader of Florence.

1449: Domenico Bigordi Ghirlandaio, one of the most successful Florentine painter of his time was born in Florence. Michelangelo would become his apprentice.

1450
1450: The alliance of Florence, Naples and Milan ensured a balance of power among the Italian states.

1450: Leon Battista Alberti redesigns the exterior of Rimini’s Church of San Francesco.

1450: Painting: The Flood and The Drunkenness of Noah by Paolo Uccello.

1450: Francesco Sforza overthrows Milan’s 3-year-old Ambrosian Republic in a February coup and makes a triumphal entry as duke March 25. Sforza and his son Galeazzo Maria will make their court a rival to that of Florence’s Medicis by attracting scholars and Greek exiles


1450c: Vatican Library founded by Nicolas V.

1451
1451: Florence’s Rucellai Palace is completed by Leon Battista Alberti.

1451: Sculpture: The Ascension by Luca della Robbia is a glazed polychrome terracotta work above a portal of the cathedral at Florence.

1451: Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa. The exact date is unknown but it was between August 25 and October 31. The son of a wool merchant and a weaver.

1451: Explorer Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence 9 March

1452
1452: Florence’s Medici Palace is completed on the Via de Ginori by architect Michelozzi di Bartolommeo for Cosimo de’ Medici whose family will occupy the palazzo for 100 years (the Riccardi family will later acquire it).

1452: Pope Nicholas V entrusted Bernardo Rossellino to plan a new Basilica of St. Peter after it had fallen into decay

1452: In Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti completed the bronze doors to the east gate of the Baptistery, the so-called Gates of Paradise, which are considered his masterpiece.

1452: Leonardo da Vinci born in Anchiano, 3 km from Vinci 15 April

1453
1453: Constantinople finally falls to the Ottoman Turks, The invaders rename it "Istanbul," (The City). With the fall of Constantinople Europe looses its entrance to the Black Sea (Asow) and with it the land route to India, which increases the need for sea routes to Asia. Muslim rulers have imposed stiff tariffs on caravan shipments with the highest duties being levied on spices, and the sultan of Egypt exacts a duty equal to one-third the value of every cargo entering his domain.

1453: Venice continues to import spices at higher prices and maintains her monopoly in the spice trade


1453: Greek scholars fleeing Constantinople are welcomed by Cosimo de’ Medici to his palazzo at Florence (see 1429).

1453: The porticoed courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence was renovated in Renaissance style by Michelozzo

1453: Piero’s son Giuliano born.

1454
1454: The Peace of Lodi April 9 ends hostilities between Venice, Milan, and Florence. Pope Nicholas V has negotiated the treaty.

1454: Francesco Barbaro (1390 – 1454) humanist scholar and pupil of guarino, dies in Venice. He had close relations with the Florentine Humanists, but wrote only one work.


1455
1455: Italian League was formed to maintain peace in Italy.

1455: Fra Angelico dies at Rome March 18 at age 55;

1455: Pope Nicolas V dies at Rome 25 March.

1455: Alfonso Borgia becomes Pope Calistus III.

1455: Lorenzo Ghiberti dies at Florence December 1 at age 77.

1455: Gutenberg prints out his first copy of his famous Gutenberg Bible, the first book to be mass published on a movable-type printing press.

1456
1456: Florence’s Church of Santa Maria Novella receives a new façade designed by Leon Battista Alberti.

1457
1457: Donatello moves to Florence after years of working at Rome, Naples, Padua, and Siena;

1458
1458: Work begins across the Arno River in Florence on a great palace for Luca Pitti, a rival of the Medici family.

1458: Aragon’s Alfonso V (the Magnanimous) dies at age 73 after a 42-year reign. He is succeeded in Aragon by his son Juan and in Naples by his unscrupulous bastard son Ferdinand (Ferrante), 35, who has a struggle to gain the succession but who enlists the support of Francesco Sforza, now 57, and Cosimo de’ Medici, now 69, who are alarmed at the presence of the French at Genoa.

1458: Pope Callistus VIII dies at Rome 6 August.

1458: Pope Pius II. Aeneas Silvius de' Piccolomini elected Pope Pius II 19 August. The central idea of his pontificate was the liberation of Europe from Turkish domination.

1459
1459: Giannozzo Manetti (1396 – 1459) dies. Disciple of Traversari, learned in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Medici supporter and critic. Almost constantly employed in public office in Florence.

1460
1460: Venice completes its arsenal. Almost a town within a town, the heart of the republic’s naval power includes a large shipyard for building the vessels that provide Venice with her wealth and power.

1460: Mantua’s Church of San Sebastian is completed by Leon Battista Alberti.

1461
1461: Sculpture: Judith and Holofernes by Donatello.

1461: Domenico Veneziano dies at Florence May 15 at 55.

1462
1462: Caterina Sforza, illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, born.

1463
1463: Venice goes to war with Constantinople following Ottoman interference with her Levant trade. Hostilities will continue for 16 years.

1464
1464: Florence’s Cosimo de’ Medici dies August 1 at age 75 while listening to one of Plato’s Dialogues. He is succeeded as head of the great Florentine banking house by his son Piero the Gouty.

1464: Pope Pius II (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini 1405 – 1464) dies 14 August at Ancona on his way to lead a crusade against the Turks.

1464: Pope Paul II. Pietro Barbo elected Pope Paul II 30 August

1465
1465: Bartolomeo Scala (1430 – 1497) appointed chancellor of Florence. Practically permanent official, owed his career largely to Medici patronage.

1466: Francesco Sforza dies in Milan.

1466: Donatello dies at Florence December 13 at age 80.

1466: Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472) invents what is probably the first polyalphabetic cipher.

1466: Florence’s Medici family forms a cartel alliance with the Vatican to finance the mining of alum (aluminum potassium sulfate) deposits in the papal states (the material is used as a mordant to fix dyes in textiles). The Medicis persuade the pope to excommunicate anyone who imports alum from the infidel Turk in breach of the Vatican-Medici monopoly (see 1471).

1466: Florence’s Luca Pitti fails in an effort to assassinate Piero de’ Medici. He is stripped of his powers, and the Pitti Palace he began in 1458 on the left bank of the Arno remains unfinished

1466: Lucrezia (Nannina) De Medici, sister of Lorenzo il magnifico, marries Bernardo Rucellai.

1467
1467: Sweynheim and Pannartz move to Rome, setting up a press in the Massimi palace, from where they published 50 more books.

1468
1468: War of Venice versus Turks begins.

1469
1469: Fra Filippo Lippi dies at Spoleto October 9 at age 63.

1469: Florence’s Piero de’ Medici dies December 3 after 5 gouty years in which he has maintained authority chiefly through the prestige of his late father Cosimo. His sons Lorenzo, 20, and Giuliano, 16, succeed to control the now mighty Florentine banking house (see 1478).

1469: Lorenzo di Medici il magnifico marries Clarice Orsini. Lorenzo himself was not attracted to her as he loved Lucrezia Donati, whom he could not marry since political wisdom dictated his choice. Nevertheless, he held an enormous tournament (10.000 Ducates). It was an enormous celebration, three days of it, but it must have been a strange feast: the host was absent, the bridegroom was reluctant, and his mother entertained her friends and guests separately on a balcony overlooking the courtyard. As might be expected, the marriage was not happy. In Lorenzo's letters to his wife there is little sign of real affection; but Clarice was a dutiful wife and was fully occupied by giving birth to ten children, seven of whom survived. When she died suddenly in 1488, Lorenzo was away taking the waters for his gout and did not attend her funeral.

1470
1470: Benedetto Dei (1470 – 1492) Florentine chronicler and merchant of Bardi Company, born.

1471
1471: Pope Paul II dies July 26 at age 54 and is succeeded by the della Rovere cardinal, who is elevated to the papacy and who will reign for 13 years as Sixtus IV.


1471: Pope Sixtus IV cancels the Vatican alliance made with the Medici family in 1466 to monopolize the alum trade. Cosimo de’ Medici’s grandson Lorenzo, 22, conciliates the new pope and is appointed receiver of the papal revenues and banker to the Vatican.


1472
1472: Leon Battista Alberti dies April 25 at age 68 in Rome. Throughout his life he dedicated himself to exploring numerous fields of knowledge, and as a result of his contributions to the arts, sciences, and letters, he has been acclaimed as the embodiment of the Renaissance ideal of the universal man. In addition to his influential treatises on art and on the family, Alberti wrote several vernacular dialogues, including Theogenius (circa 1440, Theogenius) and Profugiorum ab aerumna ( 1441-42, Flight from Hardship), which deal with the conflict between virtiù and fortune, reaffirming the importance of reason as a guide and source of comfort in adversity. He also composed Intercenales (circa 1441, Convivial Dialogues), a grammar of the Tuscan language, and several amorous writings in prose and verse reflecting his personal experience in love and his misogyny. His many interests were joined by his belief that literature, art, and science can serve the useful civic function of improving the quality of human life.

1472: Sculpture: Tomb of Giovanni and Piero de’ Medici by Florentine sculptor-painter Andrea del Verrocchio (Andrea di Michele di Francesco Clone), 37.

1473
1473: Pope Sixtus IV adds the Sistine Chapel to the Vatican Palace. The Sistine Chapel was erected by Pope Sixtus IV. The architect was Giovanni de' Dolci

1473: Donato Acciaiuoli becomes Gonfaloniere of Florence.

1473: Leonardo da Vinci drew and dated his first known work, a view of the Arno valley 5th August

1474
1474: Genoese seaman Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón), 23, begins discussing the possibility of a westward passage to Cathay (China). Also called Cristoforo Colombo, the young navigator uses projections made by German mathematicians and Italian mapmakers at Sangres (see 1421) to revive the ancient Greek knowledge that the earth is round. Columbus has the advantages of the compass invented in the 12th century and of the more recently invented mariner’s astrolabe by which a navigator can calculate the altitude of the sun, moon, or stars above the horizon and thus determine his distance north or south of the equator


1474: Federico de Montefeltro received at Vatican by Pope Sixtus IV and given title of Duke of Urbino

1475
1475: Paolo Uccello dies at Florence December 10 at age 78.

1475: Pope Sixtus IV replaces Florence’s Medici family as papal bankers with the Pazzi family following a rapprochement with Don Ferrante of Naples as the della Rovere pope tries to consolidate the papal states.

1475: Michelangelo was born 6th March at Caprese, in the Casentino, near Arezzo

1475c: Cesare Borgia, the subject of Machiavelli's The Prince, was born.

1475: Pope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici) was born 11th December at Florence to Lorenzo the Magnificent

1476
1476: Milan’s tyrant Galeazzo Maria Sforza is assassinated December 26 at age 32 by three young noblemen on the porch of the city’s cathedral. He is succeeded by his 7-year-old son Gian Galeazzo under the regency of the boy’s mother Bona of Savoy (see 1450; 1479).


1477
1477: Christopher Columbus visits England but is unable to obtain backing for his projected venture in quest of a new route to the Indies

1477: Ottoman raiders reach the outskirts of Venice as the 14-year-old war with Constantinople continues.

1477: Titian, the greatest Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance, was born. His real name was Tiziano Vecelli and he was born in Pieve di Cadore

1478
1478: Painting: Primavera (Spring) by Florentine painter Sandro (Alessandro di Mariano de Filipepi) Botticelli, 34, for the villa at Costello of Lorenzo Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent (see 1478). Botticelli has also done work for the palazzo of the great Lorenzo on the Via Larga.

1478: Economics, Finance, and Retailing, Lorenzo the Magnificent (see 1478) blandly withdraws 200,000 gold florins from the Florence city treasury to cover the default of the Medici branch at Bruges.


1478: Lorenzo de’ Medici and his brother Giuliano are attacked while attending high mass in the cathedral at Florence April 26 in a plot engineered by the Pazzi bank and Pope Sixtus IV to remove the Medicis from power. Giuliano, now 25, is stabbed to death, but Lorenzo beats back his assailants, takes refuge in the sacristy, and wreaks cruel vengeance on the Pazzi, hanging several from the palace windows, having others hacked to pieces, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Arno, while still other supporters of the Pazzi are condemned to death or sent into exile.

1478: Giulio de'Medici, later Pope Clement VII, was born a few months after his father Giuliano was killed in the disturbances taking place in Florence following the Pazzi conspiracy

1479
1479: Ludovico Sforza in Milan seizes power from his young nephew Gian Galeazzo

1480
1480 August 11 - Otranto in southern Italy falls to the Ottoman Turks. The fall of Otranto ends an Italian civil war precipitated by the Pazzi plot of 1478 that destroyed the balance of power among Florence, Naples, and Milan.

1480: Ferdinand of Aragon helps Florence’s Lorenzo de’ Medici make peace with Pope Sixtus IV.
1480: The Florentine poet Angelo Poliziano wrote the first secular play, Orfeo.

1481
1481: Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro) ousts the mother of his nephew Gian Galeazzo and takes over as ruler of Milan

1481: Tomas de Torquemada invents the Spanish Inquisition.

1481: Francesco Filelfo (1398 –1481) Humanist and Greek scholar, dies in Florence in poverty only a fortnight after his arrival. The Florentines buried him in the church of the Annunziata.



1482
1482: Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, dies 10th September of malaria at Bologna.

1482: Roberto Malatesta, Frederico's archrival dies same day 10th September, at Rome. Each had recommended his state to the care of the other.

1482: Guidobaldo da Montefeltro became duke of Urbino

1482: The first great Renaissance villa, Poggio a Caiano, was begun by Giuliano da Sangallo, for Lorenzo de' Medici

1483
1483: Painting: The Magnificat by Sandro Botticelli, who was summoned to Rome last year along with Ghirlandaio and others to help decorate the Vatican chapel of Pope Sixtus IV. Botticelli’s round picture of the Madonna with singing angels will be his most copied work;

1483: Painter Raphael was born 6th April Raffaello Santi or Sanzio in Urbino

1483: The first mass celebrated in the Sistine Chapel in Rome on 9th August. Pope Sixtus IV says Mass August 9 in the new Sistine Chapel (named after him).

1484
1484: Pope Sixtus IV dies August 12 after a 13-year papacy marked by nepotism and political intrigue in which the pope has warred with Florence and incited Venice to attack Ferrara. The Venetians have saved Sixtus from a Neapolitan invasion, but he has turned on Venice for not halting the hostilities which he himself instigated.

1484: Painting: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli for the villa at Castello of his patron Lorenzo Pierfrancesco de’ Medici; Annunciation by Carlo Crivelli.

1485
1485: Venice standardizes its quarantine of 1403 at 40 days


1486
1486: Christopher Columbus submits his plan for a westward expedition to Ferdinand and Isabella May 1 and persuades them to sponsor him


1487
1487: Pope Innocent VIII names Tomas de Torquemada grand inquisitor, and Torquemada’s Inquisition introduces measures of cruelty that will make his name infamous

1488
1488: Michelangelo was given permission by his father and uncles to study art. He entered the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio

1488: Clarice Orsini de Medici, wife of Lorenzo il magnifico, dies suddenly.

1489
1489: Due to pressure from Lorenzo de Medici Pope Innocent VIII created Giovanni de Medici (Pope Leo X) then a thirteen year-old child a cardinal, on condition that he should dispense with the insignia and the privilege of his office for three years.

1490
1490: Painting: The Annunciation altarpiece by Sandro Botticelli.



1491
1491: Amerigo Vespucci settled in Seville, and at a Medici bank branch trained for a business career. The offices that Vespucci held from the younger branch of the house of Medici explain why the former, between November of 1491 and February of 1492, joined, at Seville, Giannetto di Lorenzo Berardo Berardi, chief of a house, established at that city, which had close financial relations with the younger branch of the Medici, that is, with Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his son. Through his intelligence, he became one of the chief agents of that firm, which, later, had a leading part in fitting out the oceanic expeditions that led to the discovery of the New World.

1491: Girolamo Savonarola, 39, begins denouncing the corruption at Florence and particularly that of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The spiritual leader of the democratic party (the Piagnoni) preaches vehement sermons deploring the alleged licentiousness of the ruling class, the worldliness of the clergy, and the corruption of secular life

1492
1492: Benedetto Dei (1470 – 1492) Florentine chronicler and merchant of Bardi Company, dies.

1492: Florence’s Lorenzo de’ Medici dies April 18 at age 43. He has helped to make the Tuscan dialect the language of Italy in place of the classic Latin and helped make his city a center of European culture

1492: Christopher Columbus weighs anchor Friday, August 3, with 52 men aboard his flagship the 100-ton Santa Maria.
Columbus lands in Cuba October 28 and on December 6 lands on the island of Quisqueya, which he renames Hispaniola, but his Santa Maria runs aground on Christmas Day and must be abandoned.
Christopher Columbus discovers foods unknown in the Old World: maize, sweet potatoes, capsicums (peppers), allspice (Pimenta officinalis), plantain (Musa paradisica), pineapples, and turtle meat.

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