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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization medicine art agriculture food and drink |
Aragon obtains Roussillon and Cerdagne from France under terms of the Treaty of Narbonne signed January 19. Charles VIII has agreed to the treaty in hopes of obtaining Ferdinand II's support for an invasion of Italy, but Ferdinand has joined with the new pope Alexander VI, the German king Maximilian I, Milan, and Venice to block the French plan.
Beatrice d'Este gives birth at Milan January 25 to a son who is given the name Ercole. Her husband, Ludovico Sforza, sends Beatrice 4 months later on a diplomatic mission to Venice, accompanied by a retinue of 1,200 that includes her mother, the duchess of Ferrara. Still under 18, Beatrice sails down the Po and into the Adriatic, is entertained at Venice with a regatta, boat races, banquets, balls, and a torchlight procession; achieves few tangible results; but impresses the old Venetian councillors with her quickness, wisdom, and eloquence. She and her mother leave Venice June 2 and return to Ferrara, where she is reunited with her infant son. Her mother, Leonora, dies of a gastric infection October 11.
Maximilian I takes Artois and Franche-Comte from France under terms of the Peace of Senlis in May.
Poland's Jan Olbracht (John Albert) convenes the privy council to help him out of his financial troubles. The council will hereafter be called the senate, and the king establishes a new chamber of deputies to represent the gentry (szlachta) in the first national parliament (Sejm). He grants extensive legislative powers to the parliament and agrees to preserve traditional privileges of the nobility and gentry, who agree in return to subsidize the crown.
The German king Friedrich III dies at Linz August 19 at age 77; his successor, Maximilian I, now 34, is married by proxy November 30 to Bianca Maria Sforza, 21, in the Duomo at Milan (his first wife, Mary of Burgundy, died in 1482). The bride soon leaves to cross the Alps with Maximilian's ambassadors, accompanied as far as Como by an entourage that includes Ludovico and Beatrice (d'Este) Sforza, who rename their son Ercole Maximilian in honor of his godfather.
Isabella d'Este at Mantua gives birth December 30 to her first child, a girl who is named Leonora.
The Ethiopian ruler of Bengal Muzaffar Shah is deposed after a 2-year reign and is succeeded by his chief minister Husayn Ala ad-din, who has led a rebellion against the shah, is proclaimed king, moves his capital from Gaur to Ikdala, systematically eliminates all possible rivals, has some 12,000 troops executed, disbands the elite Hindu palace guard, and exiles all Ethiopians, replacing them with Muslim and Hindu notables. He will reign until his death in 1519 as Husayn Shah Ala ad-din (see 1498).
Nobles of the Songhai Empire in West Africa elect the son of the late Sonni Ali as his successor by acclamation January 21 (see 1492), but the new king refuses to declare himself a Muslim; Mohammed Askia, 50, defeats the son's superior forces at the Battle of Anfao April 12 and takes over the empire that was built up by Sonni Ali, beginning a 35-year reign in which he will dominate the Mandingo Empire and extend Songhai territory beyond the Niger (see 1512).
A papal bull issued May 4 by Alexander VI (Borgia) establishes a line of demarcation between Spanish discoveries and Portuguese. The Spanish are to have dominion over any lands they discover west of the line, the Portuguese over lands east of the line (see Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494).
Christopher Columbus uses wreckage from the Santa Maria to build up the stockade (La Navidad) on Hispaniola (see 1492), leaves 44 men at the fort, sets sail for home January 4 in the Niña, having kidnapped some natives. He is joined 2 days later by Martín Alonso Pinzón in the Pinta. They leave Hispaniola January 16, a storm in the North Atlantic separates them February 14, each captain believes the other to be lost, but Columbus sights an island in the Azores February 14. He lands in the Azores February 26 but is delayed for 6 days by the hostile Portuguese governor; he reaches Lisbon March 4, meets with Portugal's João II, and arrives at his home port of Palos March 15. Pinzón arrives at Palos in the Pinta a few hours later but dies within days. Columbus presents Isabella with "Indians," parrots, strange animals, and some gold; he demands and receives the reward that rightfully belongs to the sailor Rodrigo de Triana of the Pinta, who first sighted land last year.
Ferdinand and Isabella grant Columbus enormous privileges in the territories he has claimed for Spain, and they send him back as governor with about 1,500 men (including close to 200 private investors and a small troop of cavalry) in a fleet of at least 17 ships which sails from Cádiz September 24 and from the Canary Islands October 13. His second voyage has been financed in large part through the sale of assets formerly owned by Jews.
Christopher Columbus sights land in the Lesser Antilles Sunday, November 3, after a 21-day transatlantic crossing, calls the 290-square-mile (751-square-kilometer) island Dominica, sights the 426-square-mile island of Martinique (see 1502), and discovers the 530-square-mile island of Guadeloupe November 4 (its original Arawak tribal inhabitants have been displaced by Caribs, who call the two islands Karaukera, meaning Island of Beautiful Waters). Columbus consecrates it to Our Lady of Guadeloupe of Extremadura; he rescues some Arawak tribespeople who have been taken by Caribs from the island of Boriquén, agrees to return them to that island, reaches it November 19, lands on its west coast, takes possession in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, names it San Juan Bautista in honor of St. John the Baptist, and remains for 2 days; the 3,435-square-mile (8,897-square-kilometer) island is occupied by some 60,000 Taíno natives, a branch of the Arawak, and will later be called Puerto Rico (see Ponce de León, 1508). Columbus sights the 39½-square-mile (102.84-square-kilometer) island of Montserrat and names it for its jagged peaks. He visits the 176-square-mile island of Saint Kitts, which he names for his patron saint Christopher but finds it inhabited by warlike Carib tribespeople and sails on (see 1623). He arrives off Hispaniola November 22, sails westward to La Navidad, and reaches it November 28, only to find that the fort has been burned down and its garrison are all dead, some men having been killed in arguments over gold and women, others slain by natives in revenge for kidnapping their women. Anchoring December 8 at a point farther east on the coast of Hispaniola, Columbus founds a new settlement that he names La Isabela (see 1494).
Doctors use peppers (capsicums) brought back from the "Indies" by Columbus in a medicinal preparation to treat the ailing Isabella.
Painting: Madonna della Candeletta and Coronation of the Virgin by Carlo Crivelli; Madonna and Saints by Perugino.
Sculpture: Adam and Eve (limestone) by German sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider, 33, who last year completed an altarpiece for the parish church at Mlunnerstadt.
Agricultural experts accompany Christopher Columbus on his second voyage; all 20 will succumb in the tropics.
The horses and livestock landed by Columbus on Hispaniola are the first seen in the New World. Columbus left Palos with 34 stallions and mares, he has 20 remaining when he arrives, but his cattle weigh only 80 to 100 pounds when fully grown. (The horse originated in the Western Hemisphere and migrated to Asia before becoming extinct in its continent of origin at the close of the Ice Age.)
Sugar cane and cucumbers planted by Columbus on Hispaniola have come from the Canary Islands. Columbus has a special interest in sugar: his late wife's mother owns canefields on an island near Madeira (see 1419; 1506).
Columbus lands a shore party on Guadeloupe November 4 under Diego Marques, who gets lost in the island's rain forest. Five search parties try to locate them, and when Diego's men are found after 5 days they return to the ship with pineapples (Ananas comosus of the Bromelia zeae family, believed to have originated in Brazil), which the Carib tribepeople call na-na, meaning fragrance, or excellence. The seedless fruit can be propagated only by planting its crown or the sprouts which appear on its base, but it was cultivated for centuries—along with the cherimoya, papaya, avocado, tomato, cacao, and soursop—from Paraguay to Panama before making its way to the West Indies. Columbus sends some of these piñas de las Indias, as he calls them, back to Ferdinand of Aragon, and although most of them are dried out on arrival one is in edible condition, giving Europe its first taste of the fruit. "In appearance shape and color, this scale-coated fruit resembles the pine cone; but in softness is the melon's equal; in flavor it surpasses all garden fruits. To it the king awards the palm," writes one of Ferdinand's courtiers. Pineapples will be growing in India by 1548, and by the end of the next century they will have been planted by missionaries and navigators in parts of Africa and China (see 1658).
Columbus introduces limes (Citrus aurantifolia) to what he calls the West Indies, planting seeds from Asian trees to begin an industry.
Seville physician Diego Cheka lands on the islands with Columbus in November and finds Hispaniola "filled with an astonishingly thick growth of wood; a variety of unknown trees, some bearing fruit, and some flowers . . . indeed every spot is covered with verdure." Having some knowledge of botany, Cheka will write, "We found there a tree whose leaf has the finest smell of cloves that I have ever met with; it was like a laurel leaf but not so large; but I think it was a species of laurel." He describes allspice but it is not in fruit and he does not know of his discovery and will err in saying, "We found other trees which I think bear nutmegs, because the bark tastes and smells like that spice, but at present there is no fruit on them. I have seen one root of ginger which an Indian wore hanging on his neck." The Spaniards eat ages (sweet potatoes), which are thought to be "a sort of turnip, very excellent for food," and Cheka notes that the natives make a kind of bread from it, seasoning it with hot pepper or with a spice known to the natives by various names which they also eat with fish and with "such birds as they can catch."
London's 64-year-old Grocers' Company receives permission to appoint a garbeller whose function is to garbel (inspect) groceries, especially spices, and destroy adulterated products. A number of garbellers will be employed to fix seals of purity on spice cargoes before they can be weighed by the keeper of the King's Beam. A merchant whose goods are found to contain plugged peppercorns or nutmegs may have his goods seized; a dishonest merchant may be pilloried and have his adulterated spices burnt under his nose.
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