1480

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political events

Anjou, Bar, Maine, and Provence fall to the French crown upon the extinction of the house of Anjou. René, count of Anjou, dies without an heir at Aix-en-Provence July 10 at age 71, and Louis XI annexes his realms.

Ludovico Sforza, 29, asks Ferrara's Ercole d'Este for the hand of his 6-year-old daughter Isabella d'Este. Duke of Bari and a power at Milan, Ludovico is a powerful condottieri—a soldier of fortune who lives by hiring himself and whatever troops he can gather to the highest bidder among the constantly warring Italian city-states. (The Republic of Florence, duchy of Milan, Republic of Venice, papal states, and Kingdom of Naples are Italy's major powers, but there are many smaller powers). Ercole has promised Isabella to Gian Francesco Gonzaga, elder son of Mantua's marquis Federico; unwilling to offend his close neighbor yet reluctant to miss the chance of so attractive an alliance, Ercole offers Ludovico the hand of Isabella's 5-year-old younger sister Beatrice (see 1490; 1491).

Otranto in southern Italy falls to the Ottoman Turks August 11, but Mehmet II (the Conqueror) fails in a siege of Rhodes. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem purchased the island in 1306 and successfully resist the sultan from May to August. 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.

Ferdinand of Aragon helps the Florentine banker Lorenzo de' Medici make peace with Pope Sixtus IV.

The grand duke of Muscovy Ivan III takes advantage of disunity among the Tatars to stop their advance on Moscow and free the country of Tatar domination. Ivan has stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde, his allies raid the Tatar base camp near near Sarai, and the "Battle" of Ugra is a bloodless confrontation on the Ugra River about 150 miles southwest of Moscow; the Tatar khan Akhmet decides not to fight, both sides withdraw, and the event (or non-event) marks the end of Mongol power in Russia (see 1494).

medicine

Pestilence decimates the Mayan empire in the Western Hemisphere.

art

Painting: The Seven Joys of Mary by Hans Memling for the chapel of the tanners in Notre Dame at Bruges. A rich member of the guild commissioned the work and is portrayed as the foremost of the two Nativity observers; The Nativity by Piero della Francesca; Mehmet II by Gentile Bellini, who has come to Constantinople at the invitation of the Ottoman sultan. The Venetian republic appoints Giovanni Bellini official painter at a salary.

theater, film

Theater: Orfeo by the humanist poet Politian is a short, dramatic piece written in the vernacular for the court of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. Politian has written to Lorenzo de' Medici for permission to return to Florence, receives that permission in August, and although not readmitted to the Medici household resumes his instruction of young Piero de' Medici and is appointed in the autumn to the chair of Latin and Greek literature at the University of Florence, where he will deliver four inaugural lectures in verse.

architecture, real estate

Brussels completes its Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) in the Grand'Place after 72 years of work, with a tower designed in 1449 by Jan van Ruysbroek.

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