Philip I, known as Philip the Handsome or the Fair, was the first Habsburg King of Castile. The son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, Philip inherited the greater part of the Duchy of Burgundy and the Burgundian Netherlands (as Philip IV...

Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus : Autograph paper codex (1478-1518 c.), 1119 ff., 65x44cm. This is the largest collection of Leonardo's manuscript sheets, formed at the end of the sixteenth century by the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, who dis...

Jan Mabuse was the name adopted (from his birthplace, Maubeuge) by the Flemish painter Jan Gossaert; or Jennyn van Hennegouwe (Hainaut), as he called himself when he matriculated in the guild of St Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503. From 1508-9 he...

Clement VII, Pope 1523-1534, the illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, he was raised by his uncle Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1513 he was made archbishop of Florence and cardinal by his cousin Pope Leo X. He commissioned art from Raphael and...

Sir Thomas More, known to Catholics as Saint Thomas More since 1935, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and was Lord Chancell...

Hayreddin Barbarossa was an Ottoman admiral of the fleet who was born in the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos) and died in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Medi...

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés was a Spanish historian and writer. He is commonly known as "Oviedo" even though his family name is Fernández. He participated in the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, and wrote a long chronicle of...

Diego Columbus was the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indies and 3rd Governor of the Indies. He was the firstborn son of Christopher Columbus and wife Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, and was born in 1479/1480 in Porto Santo, Portuga...

Sebastián de Belalcázar was a Spanish conquistador. He took the name Belalcázar as that was the name of the castle-town near to his birthplace in Córdoba. According to various sources, he may have left for the New World with Christopher Col...

Joanna or Joan, nicknamed Joanna the Mad (Spanish: Juana la Loca), was the first queen regnant to reign over both the Crown of Castile (1504–55) and the Crown of Aragon (1516–55), a union which evolved into modern Spain. Besides the kingdom...

Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Spaniard who would later become Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattani. Lucrezia's family later came to epitomise the ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexua...

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies that resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano. He was born in a still disputed location i...

Jean Fleury (or Florin) (born ? - died 1527) was a French naval officer and privateer. He is best known for the capture of two out of the three Spanish galleons carrying the Aztec treasure from Mexico to Spain in 1522. This was one of the e...

Margaret of Austria was, by her two marriages, Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Savoy, and was appointed Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530. Margaret was born as the second child and only d...

Giulio "Delminio" Camillo was an Italian philosopher. He is best known for his Theatre of Memory, described in his posthumously published work L’Idea del Theatro. Camillo notes that L’Idea del Theathro is concerned with ‘the eternal aspect...