1504

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political events

Ferdinand II of Aragon completes his conquest of Naples January 1 with the surrender of French forces at Gaeta (see 1503). France's Louis XII cedes Naples to Ferdinand in the Treaty of Lyons, the French control northern Italy from Milan, and the Spanish control Sicily and southern Italy; they will hold Naples until 1707.

The German king Maximilian I goes to war over the succession to the duchy of Bavaria-Landshut and gains support from Georg von Frundsberg (see 1499). Albrecht IV of Bavaria defeats Rupert, son of the elector Palatine, in the Bavarian War. The German feudal knight Götz von Berlichingen, 24, loses his right hand at the siege of Landshut, has it replaced with an iron hand, and will be called "Götz of the Iron Hand."

The Moldavian voivod (prince) Stefan the Great (Stefan cel Mare) dies July 2 at age 69 after a 47-year reign in which he has gained renown throughout Europe for his opposition to the Ottoman Turks while at the same time endowing religious establishments and encouraging cultural development.

The Treaty of Blois signed in September brings accord between France and the German king Maximilian I, whose 4-year-old grandson, Charles, is betrothed to Claude, daughter of France's Louis XII. Under terms negotiated by politicians who include France's chief minister Georges Cardinal d'Amboise, now 47, Maximilian invests Louis with the duchy of Milan, and Louis promises to help Maximilian gain the imperial crown.

Castile and León's Isabella la Católica dies at Medina del Campo November 24 at age 53 after a 30-year reign in which she has helped to finance the voyages of Columbus and persecuted non-Christians with the Inquisition. Her dying thoughts are with her widowed 18-year-old daughter Catherine of Aragon in England, where Henry VII awaits the dowry he has expected from Catherine's father, Ferdinand; Isabella is succeeded in Castile by her older daughter Juana and Juana's husband, Felipe el Hermosa (Philip the Handsome), but they remain in Flanders (see 1506).

The tiny north Indian principality of Ferghana deposes her ruler Zahir-ud-Din (Babar), 21, for the third time from the throne that he inherited at age 11. A descendant of Tamerlane who has adopted the Arabic word for tiger as his name, Babar escapes across the Hindu Kush and takes refuge in Kabul, where a faction of warring Muslim princes asks his help (see 1526).

exploration, colonization

Traveler Ludovico di Varthema spends much of the year in southern Persia (see 1503). He enters into a partnership at Shiraz with a merchant whom he met on his pilgrimage to Mecca; the two try without success to reach Samarkand but will travel to Hormuz and sail for India (see 1505).

A rescue mission from Hispaniola picks up Christopher Columbus and his men from Jamaica in June (see 1503); they reach Hispaniola August 13, and Columbus returns to Spain from his fourth and final voyage to the Western Hemisphere, landing at Sanlucar November 7 too ill after a 9-week voyage from Hispaniola to pay his respects to the dying Isabella.

Merchant-navigator Amerigo Vespucci writes a letter in Italian from Lisbon September 4 making reference to voyages that he made to the New World (see 1502). The letter will be printed at Florence next year (see Waldseemüller, 1507)

commerce

Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger II secretly purchases from the city of Basel some of the crown jewels captured from Charles the Bold, duc de Burgundy, who died in 1431 (see Fugger, 1495). The pope having claimed the estate of Fugger's chief creditor, the late prince bishop of Brixen, Fugger has divided the company's assets into equal portions of landed properties, production plants and merchandise, cash holdings, and precious stones, and in 1507 will acquire the countships of Kirchberg and Wessenhorn from the German king Maximilian I (see politics, 1519).

art

Painting: Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Lucas Cranach; Adam and Eve (engraving) by Albrecht Dürer. Venetian painter Jacopo de' Barbari produces the first still life—an oil painting of a partridge. Filippino Lippi dies at Florence April 18 at age 46 (approximate).

Sculpture: David by Michelangelo, who has has taken an 18-foot slab of poor quality Carrara marble and transformed it into a statue that will survive for more than 500 years (although the lower half of its left arm will come off during a riot in Florence's Piazza della Signoria in 1527 and have to be reattached with a metal bar).

marine resources

Breton fisherman Jean Denys crosses the Atlantic and returns home from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland with his hold full of cod, a fish from the same family (Gadidae) as the hake, whose flesh can be salted aboard ship, dried after being landed, and soaked in fresh water to produce a palatable dish. Europeans begin making annual visits to the Grand Banks, which they have been visiting irregularly since before 1497 (see 1512).

food and drink

Spices in the Lisbon market drop to 20 percent of Venetian prices, breaking Venice's monopoly in the spice trade and making her vulnerable to attack (see 1503; League of Cambrai, 1508).

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