The Renaissance

Transmission of Greek Text during 4th Crusade

1202

Opens the door to learning and discovery

Birth of Lorenzo de’ Medici

1449

Florentine statesman, ruler, and patron of arts and letters, the most brilliant of the Medici. He ruled Florence with his younger brother, Giuliano (1453–78), from 1469 to 1478. After the latter’s assassination, sole ruler from 1478 to 1492.

Gutenberg prints the first Bible

1455

Johann Gutenberg holds the distinction of being the inventor of the movable-type printing press. Gutenberg produced what is considered to be the first book ever printed: a Latin language Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany.

Michelangelo sculpts the David

1501

David is a 17.0 ft marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favored subject in the art of Florence. He was originally commissioned as one of the prophets, placed in a public square outside of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa

1503

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".

Thomas More writes Utopia

1516

A work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.

Martin Luther posts 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church

1517

The priest and scholar, Martin Luther, approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.

King Henry VIII begins Protestant Anglican church

1534

King Henry VIII declared himself to be supreme head of the Church of England. This resulted in a schism with the Papacy. As a result of this schism, many non-Anglicans consider that the Church of England only existed from the 16th century Protestant Reformation.

Nicolas Copernicus publishes On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres

1543

Written by a Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, published just before his death, placed the sun at the center of the universe and argued that the Earth moved across the heavens as one of the planets.

William Shakespeare is born

1564

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

Galileo invents a thermometer

1593

A Galileo thermometer is a thermometer made of a sealed glass cylinder containing a clear liquid and several glass vessels of varying density. As the temperature changes, the individual floats rise or fall in proportion to their respective density and the density of the surrounding liquid. It is named after Galileo Galilei because he discovered the principle on which this thermometer is based: that the density of a liquid changes in proportion to its temperature.