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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization literature art food and drink population |
France's Louis XII annexes Milan on the basis of his being the great-grandson of Gian Galeazzo Visconti (see 1395; 1499). Ludovico Sforza has been captured April 10 and thrown into a French prison, where he will die in 8 years despite efforts by his sister-in-law Isabella d'Este to obtain his release. Isabella gives birth May 26 to a son, Federico, whose godfather is Cesare Borgia (see 1512).
Carlo and Grifonetto Baglioni try to assassinate the other descendants of the late Malatesta Baglioni (see 1488); the few who escape include Giovan Paolo Baglioni, 30, who takes strong retaliatory measures and emerges as Perugia's uncontested leader. He leaves the administration of Perugia in the capable hands of his kinsman Morgante, who will die in 2 years, and Giovan Paolo will be forced shortly thereafter to flee along with other surviving members of the family (see 1503).
Persia's Turkoman dynasty of the White Sheep comes under attack from tribesmen commanded by the Safavid leader Ismail from eastern Azerbaijan. Only 14, Ismail comes out of hiding to take advantage of the confusion that has existed since the death of Rustam Shah in 1497 (see 1501).
Portugal's influence in Africa reaches its height.
Portuguese navigator Gaspar de Corte-Real (or Corterreal), 50, makes the first authenticated European landing on the northern continent of the Western Hemisphere since Leif Eriksson in 1000 and Thorfinn Karlsefni a few years later. Corte-Real's father, João Vaz Corte-Real, received an Azores Island captaincy in 1474 as a reward for making a voyage to the "Land of the Codfish," and the younger Corte-Real explores the coast of Labrador (see 1501; Cabot, 1497).
Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral, 40, claims Brazil for Manuel I. Cabral has left the Cape Verde Islands with a flotilla of 13 caravels bound for India, but contrary winds have driven him westward for 43 days. He sights a 1,742-foot hill on shore, lands on April 23 (Good Friday), and takes possession in the name of the king Easter Monday. Brazil's coastline may have been explored earlier in the year or late last year by Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci (see 1499; 1501). Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón touches Cape St. Roque at the eastern extremity of Brazil. A brother of the late Martín Alonso, Pinzón captained the Niña on the first Columbus voyage.
Pedro Alvares Cabral heads out across the South Atlantic for India, loses four ships in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope but proceeds in the company of Bartolomeu Dias and Duarte Pereira (see 1488; 1498). Dias dies at sea May 29 at age 49 (approximate), but Cabral will return loaded with spices to begin regular spice trade around the Cape of Good Hope.
Ferdinand and Isabella send Spanish soldier Francisco de Bobadilla to Santo Domingo, where he is to replace Christopher Columbus as royal commissioner and chief justice (see 1498). He finds upon his arrival August 23 that Columbus has hanged five Spaniards and orders the arrest of the admiral's brother Diego, who has been left in charge of the settlement in Columbus's absence. Bobadilla impounds Columbus's papers, takes over the town, and when Columbus returns and gives himself up he is clapped in irons and sent back to Spain (see 1502).
Nonfiction: Adages (Adagia) by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus (Herasmus Gerardus), 34, is published at Paris. The collection of sayings from classical authors will appear in a larger edition at Venice in 1508.
More than 15 million books are in print after scarcely half a century of printing by movable type in Europe (manuscripts half a century ago numbered only in the thousands). Printed books produced up to this point will become known beginning in the 17th century as incunabula, from the Latin for "cradle" or "swaddling clothes," but most printers will continue for another half century to be their own typefounders, editors, publishers, and booksellers.
Painting: Christ Crowned with Thorns and Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch; Mystic Nativity by Sandro Botticelli; Prophets, Heroes, Sibyls, and Sages, the Transfiguration and the Adoration of the Shepherds, Biagio Milanese, and The Monk Baldassare by Perugino; Self-Portrait by Albrecht Dürer.
The Boke of Cokery is the first such book published in English.
England's population reaches an estimated 2.6 million; it will more than double in the next 150 years.
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