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Renaissance Italy

1400 CE – 1600 CE

The Italian city-states at their creative height — Florence, Venice, Rome, and the artists and rulers who reshaped Europe.

240 events · 332 people

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Key events

  1. Council of Florence1431 CE
    The Council of Florence was the seventeenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church, held between 1431 and 1445. It was convened in territories under the Holy Roman Empire. Italy became a venue of a Catholic ecumenical council after a gap of about two centuries. It was convoked in Basel as the Council of Basel by Pope Martin V shortly before his death in February 1431 and took place in the context of the Hussite Wars in Bohemia and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. At stake was the greater conflict between the conciliar movement and the principle of papal supremacy.
  2. Battle of Pavia1525 CE
    The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg Empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies.
  3. Sack of Rome, 15271527 CE
    The Sack of Rome, then part of the Papal States, followed the capture of Rome on 6 May 1527 by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, during the War of the League of Cognac. Charles V only intended to threaten military action to make Pope Clement VII come to his terms. However, the Imperial army were largely unpaid and mutinied. Despite being ordered not to storm Rome, they broke into the scarcely defended city and began looting, killing, and holding citizens for ransom without any restraint. Clement VII took refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo after the Swiss Guard were annihilated in a delaying rear guard action; he remained there until a ransom was paid to the pillagers.
  4. Battle of Marignano1515 CE
    The Battle of Marignano, which took place on 13–14 September 1515, near the town now called Melegnano, 16 km southeast of Milan, was the last major engagement of the War of the League of Cambrai. It pitted the French army, led by Francis I, newly crowned King of France, against the Old Swiss Confederacy. With the French were German landsknechts, and their late-arriving Venetian allies.
  5. War of the League of Cognac1526 CE
    The War of the League of Cognac (1526–1530) was fought between the Habsburg dominions of Charles V—primarily the Holy Roman Empire and Spain—and the League of Cognac, an alliance including the Kingdom of France, Pope Clement VII, the Republic of Venice, the Kingdom of England, the Duchy of Milan, and the Republic of Florence.
  6. Council of Pisa1409 CE
    The Council of Pisa was a controversial council held in 1409. It attempted to end the Western Schism by deposing both Benedict XIII (Avignon) and Gregory XII (Rome) for schism and manifest heresy. The College of Cardinals, composed of members from both the Avignon Obedience and the Roman Obedience, who were recognized by each other and by the Council, then elected a third papal claimant, Alexander V, who lived only a few months. He was succeeded by John XXIII.
  7. Treaty of Lodi1454 CE
    The Treaty of Lodi, or Peace of Lodi, was a peace agreement which brought to an end the Wars in Lombardy between the Venetian Republic and the Duchy of Milan, signed in the city of Lodi on 9 April 1454.
  8. Battle of Krbava Field1493 CE
    The Battle of Krbava Field was fought between the Ottoman Empire of Bayezid II and an army of the Kingdom of Croatia, at the time in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary, on 9 September 1493, in the Krbava field, a part of the Lika region in Croatia.
  9. Siege of Nice1543 CE
    The siege of Nice occurred in 1543 and was part of the Italian War of 1542–46 in which Francis I and Suleiman the Magnificent collaborated as part of the Franco-Ottoman alliance against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Henry VIII of England. At that time, Nice was under the control of Charles III, Duke of Savoy, an ally of Charles V.
  10. Italian War of 1551–15591551 CE
    The Italian War of 1551–1559 began when Henry II of France declared war against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, with the intent of recapturing parts of Italy and ensuring French, rather than Habsburg, domination of European affairs. The war ended following the signing of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis between the monarchs of Spain, England and France in 1559. Historians have emphasized the importance of gunpowder technology, new styles of fortification to resist cannon fire, and the increased professionalization of the soldiers.
  11. Battle of Sisak1593 CE
    The Battle of Sisak was fought on 22 June 1593 between Ottoman Bosnian forces and a combined Christian army from the Habsburg lands, mainly the Kingdom of Croatia and Inner Austria. The battle took place at Sisak, central Croatia, at the confluence of the Sava and Kupa rivers, on the borderland between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
  12. Battle of Fornovo1495 CE
    The Battle of Fornovo took place 30 km southwest of the city of Parma on 6 July 1495. It was fought as King Charles VIII of France left Naples upon hearing the news of the grand coalition assembled against him. Despite the numerical advantage of their opponents, the French won the engagement and Charles was able to march his army out of Italy. It was nonetheless devoid of any strategic result as all of their conquests in the Italian Peninsula were abandoned. Fornovo was the first major pitched battle of the Italian Wars.

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Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].