1505

1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510

political events

Ferrara's Ercole d'Este dies at age 74 (approximate) after a long reign in which Ferrara has supported humanist scholars and the arts but lost the Polesine of Rovigo. Ercole is succeeded by his son, who will reign until 1534 as Alfonso I, regaining the Polesine of Rovigo. The new signore has established a youthful reputation for rude behavior but will prove a wise ruler; Alfonso soon foils a plot against him and sentences his stepbrother Giulio and another brother, Ferrante, to life imprisonment.

The 15-year-old French nobleman Charles, comte de Montpensier, becomes duke of Bourbon and duke of Auvergne by marrying Suzanne de Beaujeu and making himself the richest man in Europe. In the next 10 years he will squander his fortune on fast horses, fancy clothes, tennis games, and jousting tournaments (see 1515).

Poland's Constitution of Radom makes the national diet the supreme legislative body: the Diet of Piotrkow 12 years ago was the first sejm to legislate for all Poland. Voting in provincial assemblies, the nobility elects the new diet, and the statute Nihil Novi forbids the king to enact laws without the diet's consent, giving the sejm and the senate a voice equal to that of the crown in executive matters.

The grand prince of Muscovy Ivan the Great dies at his native Moscow October 27 at age 65. He is succeeded by his 26-year-old son, who will reign as Basil (Vasily) III Ivanovich until 1533 and incorporate the last remaining independent Russian principalities with Muscovy (see 1510). The war with Lithuania has continued since 1501, but Basil is faced also with hostile Tatars in the Crimea and is obliged to tread softly lest his two enemies unite.

China's ninth Ming emperor Hongzhi (Hung-chi) dies after an 18-year reign and is succeeded by his 14-year-old son, who is more interested in acrobatics, magicians, music, and wrestling than in affairs of state and will reign ineffectually until 1521 as Zhengde (Cheng-te) (see 1510).

Portugal's Manuel I sends soldier Francisco d'Almeida, 54, to the Indies as his first viceroy (see Albuquerque, 1503). Embarking from Lisbon in March with a fleet of 21 ships, he rounds the Cape of Good Hope, takes Quiloa (Kilwa) on Africa's east coast and builds a fort there en route to his post; he destroys Mombasa and establishes fortified posts at Calicut, Cannanore, and Cochin on the Malabar coast. When the Arabs who have monopolized the spice trade try to stop him, he will burn and pillage their ports (see 1509).

exploration, colonization

A Portuguese expedition under the command of Lourenço de Almeida discovers Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of India and finds that the 25,332-square-mile island's trees produce a highly desirable grade of cinnamon.

Traveler Ludovico di Varthema and his Persian partner make their way from the mouth of the Indus River down the west coast of India to Goa, make excursions into the interior, and reach Calicut, where they remain for a while studying the city's trade as well as the customs, institutions, and topography of Malabar before going on through Cochin to Ceylon (see 1504). Stopping only briefly, they proceed with two Chinese Christians to Tenasserim on the Malay peninsula and then to Pegu (Burma), whose king they find wearing rubies on his fingers and toes, huge ruby-studded gold rings on his legs, and gemstones suspended from his ears. After trading successfully with the king (Varthema gives him some corals and receives 200 rubies worth about 100,000 ducats), the party sails to Malacca, Sumatra, and Banda in the Moluccas, touches at Borneo on its way westward, charters a vessel for Java, and sails for Malacca, where Varthema leaves his Chinese companions and returns to the Coromandel Coast (see politics, 1508).

commerce

An English worker can earn enough to buy eight bushels of wheat by working for 20 days, eight bushels of rye by working for 12 days, eight bushels of barley by working for 9 days (see 1599).

education

Seville University has its beginnings.

art

Painting: The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and St. Michael and the Devil by the Italian painter Raphael (Raffaelo Santi, or Sanzio), 22, at Urbino; The Virgin and Child with Four Saints by Giovanni Bellini for Venice's Church of St. Zacharias; Portrait of Bishop Bernardo de' Rossi by Italian painter Lorenzo Lotto, 25; The Combat Between Love and Chastity by Perugino; Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman by Albrecht Dürer.

music

Flemish composer Jakob Hobrecht (or Obrecht) dies of plague at Ferrara at age 52, having written dozens of contrapuntal-style masses, motets, and secular pieces for Ferrara's duke Ercole I and other patrons.

food availability

Hungary has a severe famine, forcing people to take dire measures in order to survive.

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