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France's Louis XII obtains a divorce from Jeanne, daughter of Louis XI, and marries Anne of Brittany, widow of the late Charles VIII, to keep the duchy of Brittany in the French crown.
Louis XII gains support from Venice for his claims to Milan (see 1498); he invades Italy once again, the German king Maximilian I sends an imperial army whose troops include Georg von Frundsberg, 25, to support Ludovico Sforza, but Louis forces Sforza to flee Milan and accepts the city's surrender September 14.
Lucrezia Borgia is appointed governor of Spoleto. Her father, Pope Alexander VI, confiscates the castles of the Gaetani family on the frontier between Naples and the Papal States; Lucrezia is able to buy them for 80,000 ducats.
The Swiss receive French financial backing in a war with the German king Maximilian I; southern German cities support Maximilian, but the Swiss gain a series of victories over Georg von Frundsberg and his comrades; Maximilian has no choice but to sign the Treaty of Basel September 22 granting the Swiss independence (formal independence will not come until 1648).
Venice begins a 4-year war with the Ottoman Empire. The Venetians will lose some territory and trading posts to the Turks.
The Ottoman Turks conquer Montenegro (Zeta).
Perkin Warbeck goes to the gallows November 12 for conspiring to escape from the Tower of London with the imprisoned Edward Plantagenet, 8th earl of Warwick and last male representative of the House of York (see 1497). Warwick is beheaded November 28 at age 24.
An expedition of four ships leaves Spain for the New World under the command of Alonso de Ojeda with Florentine-born Amerigo Vespucci, 45, as navigator. Probably an agent of the Medici family, Vespucci has been a resident of Seville since 1491 and helped prepare ships for Columbus's second and third expeditions. He and Ojeda discover the 171-square-mile (960-square-kilometer) Caribbean island of Curaçao 37 miles off the coast of South America as well as the 75-square-mile (193-square-kilometer) island of Aruba some 50 miles to its northwest, claiming both islands for Spain; Curaçao will be settled by Spanish colonists in 1527 and used mostly for raising livestock (see Dutch, 1634). Later evidence will suggest that Vespucci and Ojeda may split up after reaching the coast of what later will be Guyana and proceed in a southerly direction to the mouth of the Amazon River. Vespucci will return to Spain in June of next year, having reached a latitude of about 6° South before turning back, reaching the island of Trinidad, sighting the mouth of Orinoco River, and stopping at Santo Domingo en route home (see 1501).
Vasco da Gama returns to Portugal from Mozambique with pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves after having lost 100 of his 160 men to scurvy (see 1498). His success encourages Manuel I to send a second fleet on the sea voyage around Africa to open relations and trade with Indian rulers, breaking the Muslim monopoly in spices (see Cabral, 1500).
London has another epidemic of the bubonic plague that will be called the Black Death. It will kill thousands in the next 2 years (see 1471; 1603).
Granada's Moors stage a massive revolt as the Spanish Inquisitor-General Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, 63, introduces forced conversion to Christianity on a wholesale basis.
Nonfiction: Bellus Helveticum by German humanist Willibald Pirkheimer, 29, is a history of the Swiss war and includes his autobiography.
Philosopher-theologian-linguist Marsilio Ficino dies at the villa of the late Cosimo de' Medici at Careggi, outside Florence, October 1 at age 65.
Fiction: Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream by the Dominican priest Francesco Colonna is a dream allegory produced in December by Venetian printer Aldo Manuzio the elder (Manutius il Vecchio), 49, whose brilliantly designed folio is filled with elaborate engraved plates whose cost has left Manuzio nearly bankrupt. Colonna has written the work in an Italian language so full of words borrowed from recondite Latin sources as to be virtually incomprehensible even to the most learned reader, but its lavish and sensuous illustrations will make the book prized for more than 5 centuries.
Poetry: The Bowge of Court by English poet-translator John Skelton, 39, is an allegory satirizing the court of Henry VII.
Painting: Archangel Michael, the Virgin Adoring the Child, Archangel Raphael with Tobias by Perugino.
Theater: La Celestina (Tragicomedia de calisto y Melibea) by Spanish playwright Fernando de Rojas, 24.
Venice's campanile (clock tower) is completed in the Piazza San Marco after 3 years of construction. Two side wings will be added in the next 7 years, and additional floors will be added in 1755 to the campanile just west of the 400-year-old San Marco Church. Carved Moorish figures ring the campanile's great bell to provide a spectacle for the people.
Oriental spices such as those brought back by Vasco da Gama are widely used to preserve meat and to disguise the bad taste of spoiled meat which constitutes the bulk of human diets in late winter and spring (although many relish the taste of such meat, calling it "well hung") (see capsicums, 1529).
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