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The Medici Family becomes the head of the city-state of Florence
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Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press
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Instrumental music takes root in Europe. During the Renaissance period, the music would consist of early brass instruments, small percussion instruments, early woodwind instruments, and adapted string instruments.
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The Ottoman Empire captures the city of Constantinople, signaling an end to the Byzantine Empire. Ottoman conquest of Constantinople: many Greek thinkers and workers travel westward; end of Hundred Years War: stability return to north-west Europe.
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Johannes Tinctoris, a theorist, announces the rebirth of music in his "Liber de arte Contrapuncti". This new form of music continued to flourish in the Religious forms such as masses, anthems, psalms, and motets. Towards the end of the period, some composers started to adopt more secular forms, such as the madrigal.
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Boticelli completes the painting The Birth of Venus
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The explorer Christopher Columbus discovers the Americas
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Leonardo do Vinci paints the Last Supper
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University at Oxford begins granting degrees in MUSIC
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Ottavio Petrucci invents music paintings/ printings. This Era brought and increased amount of harmony and polyphony into the music. Most composers focused on choral music.
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Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa
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Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Church of Wittenberg. This signals the start of the Reformation.
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An Italian composer who wrote more than 105 masses and 250 motets.
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Henry VIII separates the Church of England from the Catholic Church of Rome
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An English composer during this time period. He is well known for his development of the English madrigal. He too wrote and performed organ and virginal music that elevated the English keyboard style.
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Elizabeth I becomes the Queen of England: the start of the English "Golden Age".
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Gioseffo Zarlino publishes "Le istitution harmoniche", definition of modern major and minor scales. The second part of the period, composers moved away from the harmony music and more focused on the organization of major and minor scales.
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William Shakespeare builds the Globe Theatre
