On June 24, 1519, Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei, passed away. Lucrezia's family later came to epitomize the ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption alleged to be characteristic of the Renaissance Papacy.
On June 15, 1475, Pope Sixtus IV issued the papal bull 'Ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae' in which he regulated the complex structure of the newly founded Vatican Apostolic Library and appointed Renaissance author Bartolomeo Platina as its first head librarian.
On June 3, 1539, Spanish conquistador and explorer Hernan de Soto, with all the dignitaries and necessary paraphernalia, took formal possession of La Florida, where he landed nine ships with more than 620 men and 220 horses. De Soto's expedition was the first European expedition leading deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, searching for gold, silver and also a passage to China. Moreover, he also was the first European documented to have crossed the Mississippi River.
On May 21, 1471, German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist Albrecht Dürer was born. He was considered as one of the greatest artists of the Northern Renaissance.
On May 21, 1471, German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist Albrecht Dürer was born. He was considered as one of the greatest artists of the Northern Renaissance. Aside from painting, he also excelled in prints. Many of his works focused on Roman Catholicism, mostly altarpieces and other related religious art, but he also did numerous self-portraits. Moreover, his works were also backed up by theories, which join concepts in math, idealistic proportions and perspective.
On May 10, 1521, German humanist and satirist Sebastian Brant passed away. He is best known for his book of satire entiteled 'Das Narrenschiff" (The Ship of Fools) published in 1494 in Basel, Switzerland. It is most likely that you might have never heard of Brant nor of his famous book. Anyway, if you continue reading, you won't regret...
On May 2nd, 1601 (or 1602), German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher was born. He has published most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine, and has been compared to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests. He is regarded as one of the founders of Egyptology for his (mostly fruitless) efforts in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, wrote an encyclopedia about China, studied volcanos and fossils, was one of the very first to observe microbes thorough a microscope, and experimented with the laterna magica as a predecessor of photography.
On April 4, 1617, Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer and astrologer John Napier of Merchiston, the 8th Laird of Merchistoun passed away. John Napier is best known as the discoverer of logarithms. He was also the inventor of the so-called "Napier's bones", a kind of abacus for calculation of products and quotients of numbers. Napier also made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics.
On March 31, 1596, French philosopher, mathematician, and writer René Descartes was born. The Cartesian coordinate system is named after him, allowing reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy'. His Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments.
On March 26, 1516, Swiss naturalist and bibliographer Conrad Gessner was born. His five-volume Historiae animalium (1551–1558) is considered the beginning of modern zoology, and the flowering plant genus Gesneria is named after him. He is considered as one of the most important natural scientists of Switzerland and was sometimes referred to as the 'German Pliny'.
On February 19, 1473, Renaissance mathematician and astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus, who established the heliocentric model, which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe, was born.
On February 3, 1468, German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg - or simply Johannes Gutenberg - passed away. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period.
On January 7, 1610, physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his new telescope to the nocturnal sky to watch the planet Jupiter and discovered the eponymous four moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganimede, and Callisto.
On December 24, 1524, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, passed away. He was one of the most successful explorers in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India.
On December 14, 1546, Danish nobleman and astronomer Tycho Brahe, known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations was born.
On December 9, 1602, English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant John Milton, was born. He is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
On November 11, 1493, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, aka Paracelsus, the famous Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist was born.
On November 11, 1493, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, aka Paracelsus, famous Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist was born.
On October 31, 1632, Dutch genre painter Johannes Vermeer was born in Delft. Vermeer always worked slowly and with great care, using bright colours and sometimes expensive pigments, with a preference for cornflower blue and yellow. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.
543 years ago today, Florentine civil servant, diplomat, historian, philosopher and author Niccolò Machiavelli was born. Besides his seminal work 'Il Principe' (The Prince) he also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and even poetry.
Nach der Übernahme von Gutenbergs Mainzer Druckereiwerkstatt durch seinen Geschäftspartner Johannes Fust und dessen Gehilfen Peter Schöffer entwickelte sich auch die Druck- und Verfahrenstechnik weiter. Insbesondere Peter Schöffer, der nach der Heirat mit Fusts Tochter Christine zu dessen Schwiegersohn und Partner wurde und die Mainzer Druckwerkstatt nach Fusts Tod 1466 übernahm, zeichnete sich durch die Verfeinerung der typografischen Zierelemente, die Kunstfertigkeit des Metallschnitts und einen verbesserten Rotdruck aus, mit der sich Schöffer von den Arbeiten der Rubrikatoren und Illuminatoren völlig lösen konnte.
Johannes Agnolis Abschiedsvorlesung WS 89/90 FU-Berlin: Er zeigt „was es heißt, den Antagonismus gegen Herrschaft und Ausbeutung zu praktizieren und ihn zugleich zu denken.“ -- Der Link zum Kapitel 14 stimmt nicht!
Teil 3 der "Kurzen Geschichte des Buchdrucks" mit Gutenbergs Meisterstück, der Prachtbibel, die ihm und der Drucktechnik zum Durchbruch verhalf, im Biblionomicon
Teil 2 der 'Kurzen Geschichte des Buchdrucks', in der es um Gutenbergs revolutionäre Entwicklungen bzgl. der Drucktechnik geht und diese detailliert erläutert werden...
L. Labé. Femmes de Lettres Secession, Zürich, (2019)Aus dem Mittelfranzösischen übersetzt von Monika Fahrenbach-Wachendorff. Mit einem Nachwort von Elisabeth Schulze-Witzenrath.