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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization commerce literature art music |
The German king Maximilian I recognizes French conquests in northern Italy in the Peace of Trent.
Ferdinand II of Aragon declares Granada a Christian kingdom but encounters resistance from the Moors. He helps France's Louis XII conquer the kingdom of Naples from Federigo, king of Sicily. French forces enter Rome, and Pope Alexander VI declares Louis king of Naples (but see 1503).
Ferdinand II's youngest daughter Catherine of Aragon reaches England after a 3-month voyage in which her ships have weathered several storms. She lands at Plymouth October 2, and on November 14 is married at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to Henry VIII's 14-year-old son Arthur, Prince of Wales, to whom she has been engaged since age 3. The couple moves to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border, but within 6 months young Arthur will be dead of tuberculosis or the "sweating sickness," leaving Catherine a 16-year-old widow (see 1504).
England's Henry VII declines a papal request to lead a crusade against the Ottoman Turks, who take Durazzo from Venice.
Poland's Jagellon king Jan I Olbracht (John I Albert) dies fighting Ottoman forces at Torun June 17 at age 41 after Moldavian forces defeat his noblemen in the forests of Bukovina. Parliamentary power has grown during his 10-year reign, and he has been preparing to invade the Prussian territories of his vassal Frederick of Saxony, grand master of the Teutonic Order. Jan's 39-year-old brother will reign until 1506 as Aleksander I.
The grand duke of Muscovy Ivan the Great invades Lithuania, which in earlier years was his ally (see 1494; 1505).
Persia's Alwand of the White Sheep is defeated at the Battle of Shurur by the young Safavid leader Ismail, who takes Tabriz (see 1500; 1502).
Lucrezia Borgia is married at Christmas for the third and last time at age 21 to Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara. The proxy wedding at Rome follows several rounds of debauched partying in which her father and her brother Cesare have been involved. Isabella d'Este and her two younger brothers escort the bride back to Ferrara, where the city sees a procession of 75 liveried archers, 80 trumpeters, 24 pipers, and numerous noblemen, squires, gentlemen, bishops, and ladies in carriages. Isabella's father puts on six comedies in a new theater large enough to seat 5,000.
Gaspar de Corte-Real makes a second voyage to the northern continent of the New World, kidnaps 57 "Indians" to be sold as slaves, but drowns along with his crewmen and the slaves chained in the ship's hold as his caravel sinks in a storm on the homeward voyage. A second vessel reaches Portugal with seven Indians left alive, but Corte-Real's brother Miguel will be lost next year on a voyage in search of his lost sibling.
Amerigo Vespucci makes a second voyage to the New World, this time in the service of Portugal (see 1499). He leaves Lisbon May 13, stops at the Cape Verde Islands, and reaches Brazil. Vespucci's account of the Brazilian coast will express his conviction that it is not part of Asia but indeed a New World (see 1502; Vespucci, 1504).
A Portuguese fleet of four ships under the command of Spanish navigator João da (Juan de) Nova discovers the islands of Ascension and St. Helena off the southwestern coast of Africa. His crews have by some accounts included Amerigo Vespucci.
Vasco da Gama wins control of the spice trade for Lisbon. He sets out with a fleet of 20 caravels to close the Red Sea and cuts off the trade route through Egypt to Alexandria, where Venetian merchants have been buying spices imported from the archipelago between Celebes on the west, New Guinea on the east, Timor on the south, and the open Pacific to the north (see 1499; 1504).
Nonfiction: Speculum Principis by John Skelton is a moral treatise for England's Prince Henry.
Poetry: The Palice of Honour by Scottish poet Gawin Douglas, 26, who has taken holy orders and becomes provost of Edinburgh's St. Giles Cathedral.
Painting: Life of the Virgin by Albrecht Dürer.
Sculpture: Pietà and Bacchus by Michelangelo, who has created the Pietà on a commission from the French cardinal Jean de Villiers de la Grolaie, abbot of St. Denis, and the Bacchus for Roman nobleman Jacopo Galli. Michelangelo returns to his native Florence after a 5-year stay at Rome and begins work on a great statue of David.
Venetian printers use movable type to print music for the first time.
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