A fundamental work by one of the greatest political and military theorists of Western civilization. Voltaire said, "Machiavelli taught Europe the art of war; it had long been practiced, without being known." For Machiavelli, war was war, an...

Catherine Howard (born between 1520 and 1525; died February 13, 1542) was the fifth queen consort of Henry VIII of England (1540-1542), and sometimes known by his reference to her as "the rose without a thorn." Her birth date and place of b...

Pedro Cieza de León was a Spanish conquistador and chronicler of Peru. He is known primarily for his history and description of Peru, Crónicas del Perú. He wrote this book in four parts, but only the first was published during his lifetime;...

Christophe Plantin was an influential Renaissance humanist and book printer and publisher. Besides the polyglot Bible, Plantin published many other works of note, such as editions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, the botanical works of Dodo...

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley KG PC, was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (1550–53 and 1558–72) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. Albert Pollard says, "From 15...

The Siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege...

Count Lamoral of Egmont was a Flemish general and statesman. He was Fillips II's supreme commander and achieved important victories on the French. Therefore he became appointed by Fillips II as governor of Flanders and Artesia, as a member...

Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst. She was a Duchess consort of Florence and a Duchess consort of Pa...

Some of the Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven images of God...

The German Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (German: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in the German-speaking areas of Central Europe, 1524–1525. It failed because of the intense opposition of the aristocracy, wh...

Selim II Sarkhosh, also known as "Selim the Sot (Mest)" or "Selim the Drunkard", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death. He was born in Constantinople a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his fourth and favourite wi...

Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and dr...

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From...

Mathurin d’Aux de Lescout, called Mathurin Romegas, was a scion of the aristocratic Gascony family of d'Aux and a member of the Knights of Saint John. He was one of the Order's greatest naval commanders and ended his life disgraced as a Riv...

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian composer of Renaissance music. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. Palestrina had a vast influence on the development of Roman C...