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The Battle of Cerignola April 26 pits a 6,000-man Spanish army against a 10,000-man French army of cavalry and pikemen led by the duc de Nemours. Armed with arquebusiers and commanded by Ferdinand II of Aragon's general Hernández Gonzalvo de Córdoba, 49, the Spaniards provoke the French, fire at them from ditches and behind palisades, and rout them, killing Nemours and forcing the French to abandon Naples (see 1504).
Cesare Borgia's power crumbles following the death of his father, Pope Alexander VI August 18. The people of Urbino drive out Borgia's soldiers and welcome back Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and his faithful wife, Elizabetta, who surround themselves with the leading poets, painters, musicians, and writers of Italy, conducting endless discussions about life, ethics, manners, poetry, and love. The duke's soldiers include Count Baldassare Castiglione, 25, who adores Elizabetta and will soon serve the court as resident intellectual and ambassador. Guidobaldo will adopt his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere as his heir, and when Guidobaldo dies the della Rovere family will succeed the Montefeltros as rulers of Urbino (see 1516).
Giovan Paolo Baglioni and his cousin Gentile retake Perugia after a short, bloody battle (see 1500). But the newly elected pope Julius II makes up his mind to control Perugia himself (see 1506).
Corsicans revolt against Genoese rule. Soldier of fortune Andrea Doria, 36, helps his uncle Domenico suppress the uprising, which will end in 1506.
The Battle of Garigliano November 3 ends in victory for a 15,000-man Spanish army under the command of Hernández Gonzalvo de Córdoba over a 23,000-man Franco-Italian army commanded by Giovan Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua. France's Louis XII has come to the south of Italy with former Florentine ruler Piero de' Medici but abandons claims to Naples following the breakup of his alliance with Ferdinand II of Aragon and defeat of French forces, who suffer 4,000 casualties, including those killed, wounded, and taken prisoner (see 1504).
Former Florentine ruler Piero de' Medici drowns at age 31 December 28 while trying to cross the Garigliano River and is buried in the cloister of Monte Cassino.
Moldavia's Stefan the Great concludes a treaty with the Ottoman sultan Bayazid II, who agrees to preserve Moldavian independence in return for an annual tribute.
Portuguese soldier Afonso de Albuquerque, 50, and his cousin Francisco reach Cochin on the southwestern coast of India to protect the ruler of that Hindu dependency; they build the first Portuguese fortress in Asia, and man it with a garrison. They will return to Lisbon in July of next year (see Almeida, 1505).
The Spanish governor of Hispaniola Nicolás de Ovando receives royal authorization to relieve the colony's labor shortage by importing African slaves (see 1502; 1511).
Another 1,000 to 2,000 Spanish colonists arrive in Hispaniola.
Christopher Columbus tries to establish a trading post in February on the bank of the Belén (Bethlehem) River on the Isthmus of Panama, giving his brother Bartholomew command. Only two of his ships remain, and he heads for Hispaniola with the worm-holed La Capitana and Vizcaino. His pilots go north prematurely then they have to beach the ships on the Jamaican coast. Two of his captains leave by canoe in mid-July to seek help, they cross the 450 miles to Hispaniola, but Nicolás de Ovando is reluctant to send a rescue expedition (see 1504).
Italian adventurer Ludovico di Varthema arrives at Alexandria in January, journeys up the Nile to Cairo, returns to Alexandria, sails to Beirut, proceeds to Tripoli and Aleppo, reaches Damascus in April, and contrives to become a member of the Mameluke garrison under the name Yunas (Jonah) (see 1502). Having either embraced Islam or pretended to, he joins a huge caravan of 40,000 pilgrims, 35,000 camels, and a 60-man Mameluke escort bound for Mecca in Hejaz, visits Medina, and becomes probably the first non-believer to visit Mecca, where he remains for about 3 weeks before joining some pilgrims headed for India. Arrested at Aden and imprisoned as a Christian spy, he is released after 2 months and sent to the Yemeni sultan's palace, where he feigns madness and one of the sultan's wives intercedes on his behalf. Once freed, Varthema walks 600 miles through the mountainous southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula. He then embarks for northwestern India by way of Somaliland, sails across the Indian Ocean to Diu in Gujarat, goes up the Gulf of Cambay to Gogo, and makes his way back to Muscat and Hormuz on the Persian Gulf (see 1504).
Christopher Columbus observes rubber on his fourth voyage to the New World. The heavy black ball used in games played by the natives astonishes the Spaniards by bouncing as if it were alive. The Spaniards are the first Europeans to see the vegetable gum produced by the natural evaporation of latex either of the guayule shrub Parthenium argentatus or of Hevea brasiliensis, but rubber will not come into commercial use for another 3 centuries and then only to rub out pencil marks, whence it will derive its English name rubber, or india rubber (see La Condamine, 1735).
Pope Alexander VI dies of malaria at Rome August 18 at age 72 after an 11-year reign in which he has enriched himself through graft and embezzlement while flaunting his mistresses. He has publicly acknowledged his four illegitimate children by Rosa, including his son Cesare and his daughter Lucrezia, who had her first two husbands while still in her teens. Alexander's excesses have alienated many churchgoers (see 1512; Luther, 1517). France's Louis XII urges the election of his chief minister Georges Cardinal d'Amboise to the papacy, but the cardinal refuses to use French troops to force his election. Another Italian is elected to succeed Alexander as Pius III, and when Pius dies a month later he is succeeded by Giuliano della Rovere, 60, a nephew of the late Sixtus IV, who will reign until his death in 1513 as Julius II.
Poetry: The Thissill and the Rois by Scottish poet William Dunbar, 43, who has composed the political allegory to honor Margaret Tudor, whose marriage to James IV he has helped to negotiate.
Painting: Crucifixion by Lucas Cranach; Leda and the Swan by Leonardo da Vinci, who begins his great mural The Battle of Anghiari for Florence's Palazzo della Signoria (see politics, 1440). The magistrati have decided to decorate the walls of the city's main government building with scenes of military victories and have commissioned Leonardo, who rejects the idea that light emanates from the human eye, saying rather that it enters the eye.
England's Canterbury Cathedral is completed in Norman-Gothic style after 436 years of construction (see 1130).
Portuguese caravels return from the East Indies with 1,300 tons of pepper, a quantity six times the amount that Egypt's Mameluke regime has permitted to be shipped in any one year, and earn profits of as much as 6,000 percent. A 500-pound bag of cloves that costs two ducats in the Moluccas (a cluster of tiny, mountainous islands in the Malay archipelago) fetches 14 ducats when it arrives at Malacca on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula and 500 ducats when it reaches Calicut. By the time such a shipment reaches the port of London it is priced at 2,000 ducats, and dockworkers have their pockets stitched up to prevent pilferage (they are paid bonuses in peppercorns and cloves). A clove tree yields only about seven pounds of the dried spice per year, so 500 pounds represents the annual yield of about 70 trees.
Cloves are employed not only to preserve meat and disguise spoilage but also in preserves, syrups, sauces, sweetmeats, and clove tea (they are also used in orange pomanders to freshen the air and in wool closets to keep away moths).
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