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Contents: political eventsexploration, colonization commerce medicine literature art agriculture |
The Treaty of Westminster signed April 30 allies England's Henry VIII and France's François I (see League of Cognac, 1526). François begins new hostilities against Spain's Carlos I (the uncrowned emperor Charles V), whose ally Charles, duc de Bourbon, has commenced in May to let his unpaid troops and mercenaries attack Milan's neighboring cities and pillage them in lieu of other compensation. Still on the brink of mutiny, his regular troops seize gold and silver ornaments from churches and melt them down to pay the mercenaries; Bourbon decides in April to unleash his Protestant mercenaries on Rome, which has been considered the inviolate center of Christianity and is guarded only by a few old cannon. Pope Clement VII hears that Bourbon's army is approaching and orders the city's inhabitants to defend it, but only about 500 men respond.
The Renaissance greatness of Rome ends May 6 in a terrible sack of the city by Spanish troops and 15,000 Lutheran mercenaries. Charles, duc de Bourbon, is killed in the first assault by a Roman crossbow bolt (Florentine goldsmith-sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, 26, will later claim to have fired it), but his troops are undeterred: advancing through a thick fog and swarming through the Borgo, they murder a priest because he has refused to kneel and give Holy Communion to a donkey; they rape the women, torture some of the men, and plunder churches, shrines, and historic monuments, leaving many in ruins. An estimated 45,000 men, women, and children either flee the city or die in the desecration perpetrated by Catholic and Lutheran soldiers alike. The Lutherans boast that they have come with hemp halters to hang the cardinals and a silk one for the pope, but Pope Clement VII escapes to the Castel Sant' Angelo where he holes himself up for 6 months, but the duc de Bourbon's body is taken to lie in state at the Sistine Chapel and that structure is spared. The pillage continues for 8 days before some degree of control can be restored. When news of the disaster reaches Carlos I, he sends his profound apologies to the pope, claiming that Bourbon's renegade army acted without his approval. The autocratic François I expropriates Bourbon's remaining estates by royal decree (he affixes the words, "Because such is our good pleasure" at the bottom of all his ordinances), the doorways of the Bourbon palace at Paris are painted yellow—a symbolic mark of humiliation generally reserved for nobles judged guilty of treason, and the dukedom is terminated. Rome remains under the thumb of its invaders until a plague disperses them in December (see religion [Universal Inquisition], 1542).
Niccolo Machiavelli dies at his native Florence June 22 at age 58.
Poland's Sigismund I appoints Jan Tarnowski, now 39, commander in chief of his army; Tarnowski will halt Tatar raids into Poland.
England's Henry VIII appeals to Rome for permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon so that he may marry his mistress Anne Boleyn, a niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd duke of Norfolk; she holds Cardinal Wolsey in low regard because he has barred her from marrying a member of the Percy family (see 1533).
The Battle of Kanvaha March 16 gives the Mughal emperor Babar victory over Rajput forces, eliminating his chief Hindu rivals in northern India (see 1526; 1530).
The governor of Hanoi deposes the Le rulers of Vietnam and makes himself master of the country (see 1497). A Le dynasty emperor will be restored in 1533 as titular head of state with help from the Nguyen family, but Mac Dang Dung's action begins a civil war that will continue for most of the century, with the real power being shared by the Nguyen at Hue in the south and the Trinh at Hanoi in the north (see 1545).
The Muslim Somali chief Ahmed Gran invades Ethiopia with firearms, taking a deadly toll. The negus appeals for Portuguese aid (see 1541).
Explorer Juan de Grijalva is ambushed and killed by natives in what later will be Honduras January 21 at age 46 (approximate), having joined an expedition sent out from Panama by Pedro Arias Dávila. Hernándo Cortéz completes his conquest of New Spain even though his power was revoked last year.
English explorer Sir Hugh Willoughby searches for a Northwest Passage to Cathay and the Spice Islands, but Henry VIII is more intent on building the Royal Navy to protect his merchant trade with nearby coastal ports than with financing explorations.
English trade with Russia begins.
France's chief financial officer Jacques de Beaune is found guilty of peculation and sent to the gallows (see 1518).
Chemotherapy and modern medical thinking are pioneered by Basel physician Theophrastus von Hohenheim, 34, whose critics call him Theophrastus Bombastus. He rejects traditional notions of the body having four "humors," says the three prime "elements" are salt, sulfur, and mercury, and burns Greek medical books to promote his "new medicine" (see 1528).
Marguerite d'Angoulême, 35, queen of Navarre, makes writers such as Rabelais welcome at her Château de Nerac in Agen; older sister of France's François I, she creates an intellectual court while writing poetry, moral tales, and letters that encourage religious liberty (see 1531).
Painting: The Vision of St. Jerome by Il Parmigianino, who escapes to Bologna after the sack of Rome (he was preoccupied with his work when the Germans broke into his studio, and they were reportedly so awed by the brilliance of his paintings that they merely requested a few drawings); The Worship of the Golden Calf and Moses Striking Water from the Rock by Lucas van Leyden.
Florence-born sculptor Jacopo Sansovino (né Tatti), now 40, flees to Venice after the sack of Rome, where he has worked since 1518, having adopted the name of his Florentine master Andrea Sansovino. He will gain renown at Venice as an architect as well as a sculptor.
Conquistadors return to Spain with avocados, papayas, and tomatoes. They have found the natives of New Spain eating such foods in addition to beans, squash, algae, agave worms (maguey slugs), winged ants, tadpoles, water flies, larvae of various insects, white worms, iguana, and guinea pigs (Cavia porcellis), which they have domesticated. Two male guinea pigs and 20 females can provide a family with a cuy each day; the animal is eaten with its skin on, the hair having been removed as with a suckling pig. The Aztec also eat dog that has been fattened on avocados and other vegetables and never fed meat (see Banks, 1769), and they eat waterbugs, the eggs of waterbugs (said to taste like caviar), lake shrimp, frogs and tadpoles, large larval salamanders, edible algae, and tiny worms from Lake Tenochtitlan, which are made into tortillas.
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