1466
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Contents: political eventscommerce communications, media art |
Francesco Sforza dies at Milan March 8 at age 65 after a 16-year reign as duke, having founded a dynasty that will rule the city for nearly a century. His cruel and lustful son Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 21, inherits the ducal throne and will rule the city-state until 1476.
Florentine nobleman Luca Pitti fails in an effort to assassinate the gouty Piero de' Medici, who is so badly crippled that he is able to move only his tongue but uses it to have himself borne to Florence on a litter. Pitti is stripped of his powers; the Pitti Palace that he began in 1458 on the left bank of the Arno remains unfinished (see real estate, 1549).
The Second Peace of Thorn signed October 19 ends a Thirteen Years' War between Poland and the Teutonic Knights (see first Peace of Thorn, 1411). Poland recovers Pomerelia and the city of Gdansk, which the order has held since 1308, and regains her outlet to the Baltic Sea. The order that was founded in 1191 becomes a vassal of the Polish crown and half the Teutonic Knights become Poles.
Pope Paul II excommunicates Bohemia's George Podiebrad and inspires a Hungarian crusade against the king (see 1463; 1470; Matthias Corvinus, 1467).
Florence's Medici family forms a cartel alliance with the Vatican to finance the mining of alum deposits in the papal states (see 1461). The Medicis persuade Pope Paul II to excommunicate anyone who imports alum from the infidel Turk in breach of the Vatican-Medici monopoly (see 1471).
Printer Johann Fust dies at Paris October 30 at age 66, having profited far more from the Gutenberg printing press than its inventor ever has.
Painting: Pietà by Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, 36 (his sister Nicolosia is married to Andrea Mantegna of Padua and his work shows Mantegna's influence).
The sculptor Donatello (Donato di Niccolo) dies at Florence December 13 at age 80.
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