Renaissance
1400 – 1600 ADThe recovery and surpassing of antiquity. Florentine painters mastered perspective, humanists recovered Greek manuscripts, and the printing press multiplied the reach of ideas. Shakespeare and Monteverdi mark the era's culmination — the invention of modern theater and opera.
Literature & Philosophy
Visual Arts & Architecture
Music & Performing Arts
1400–1500
VisualBrunelleschi1377 – 1446Dome of Florence CathedralVisualDonatello1386 – 1466David, GattamelataMusicJosquin des Prez~1450 – 1521Master of Renaissance polyphonyVisualBotticelli1445 – 1510Birth of Venus, PrimaveraVisualLorenzo Ghiberti1378 – 1455Gates of Paradise — Florence BaptisteryVisualMasaccio1401 – 1428Brancacci Chapel — painting's second founderVisualFra Angelico~1395 – 1455San Marco frescoes — the blessed painterVisualPaolo Uccello1397 – 1475Battle of San Romano — perspective obsessiveVisualPiero della Francesca~1415 – 1492Legend of the True Cross — geometry and lightVisualLeon Battista Alberti1404 – 1472De Pictura, Tempio Malatestiano — Renaissance polymathVisualAndrea Mantegna1431 – 1506Camera degli Sposi, Dead ChristVisualGiovanni Bellini~1430 – 1516Venetian light — father of Venetian paintingVisualVerrocchio1435 – 1488Colleoni monument — Leonardo's teacherVisualDomenico Ghirlandaio1449 – 1494Tornabuoni Chapel — Michelangelo's teacherVisualPerugino~1446 – 1523Delivery of the Keys — Raphael's teacherVisualFra Filippo Lippi~1406 – 1469Madonna and Child — the carnal friarVisualLuca Signorelli~1445 – 1523Last Judgment — Orvieto CathedralVisualJan van Eyck~1390 – 1441Ghent Altarpiece, Arnolfini Portrait — oil painting perfectedVisualHieronymus Bosch~1450 – 1516Garden of Earthly Delights — visionary nightmares
1500–1600
VisualLeonardo da Vinci1452 – 1519Last Supper, Mona LisaVisualMichelangelo1475 – 1564Sistine Chapel, David, St Peter'sVisualRaphael1483 – 1520School of AthensLiteratureShakespeare1564 – 1616Hamlet, King Lear, the sonnetsLiteratureMontaigne1533 – 1592Essais — invention of the essayMusicMonteverdi1567 – 1643L'Orfeo — birth of operaMusicPalestrina1525 – 1594Missa Papae MarcelliVisualTitian~1488 – 1576Venetian colorist masterLiteratureMachiavelli1469 – 1527The PrinceLiteratureErasmus1466 – 1536In Praise of FollyMusicThomas Tallis1505 – 1585Spem in alium — English polyphonyMusicOrlando di Lasso1532 – 1594Penitential Psalms — cosmopolitan polyphonistMusicWilliam Byrd1543 – 1623English keyboard and choral masterMusicTomas Luis de Victoria1548 – 1611Officium Defunctorum — Spanish sacred polyphonyMusicJohn Dowland1563 – 1626Lachrimae — melancholy lute songsMusicCarlo Gesualdo1566 – 1613Chromatic madrigals — prince and murdererVisualAndrea del Sarto1486 – 1530The faultless painterVisualCorreggio~1489 – 1534Assumption of the Virgin — Parma's domeVisualGiorgione~1477 – 1510The Tempest — Venetian mood paintingVisualBenvenuto Cellini1500 – 1571Perseus with the Head of Medusa — goldsmith and braggartVisualTintoretto1518 – 1594Paradise, Scuola di San Rocco — Venetian furyVisualVeronese1528 – 1588Wedding at Cana — Venetian spectacleLiteratureLudovico Ariosto1474 – 1533Orlando Furioso — the great Italian romance epicLiteratureTorquato Tasso1544 – 1595Gerusalemme Liberata — the Counter-Reformation epicLiteratureFrancois Rabelais~1494 – 1553Gargantua and PantagruelLiteratureChristopher Marlowe1564 – 1593Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine — the mighty lineLiteratureEdmund Spenser1552 – 1599The Faerie Queene — England's national epicVisualAlbrecht Durer1471 – 1528Melencolia I, self-portraits — Northern Renaissance masterVisualLucas Cranach the Elder1472 – 1553Luther's portraitist — German RenaissanceVisualHans Holbein the Younger1497 – 1543The Ambassadors — Tudor court painterVisualPieter Bruegel the Elder~1525 – 1569Hunters in the Snow, peasant scenes — the Flemish HomerVisualAndrea Palladio1508 – 1580Four Books of Architecture, Villa Rotonda