Historical Archives & Public Figures

Thomas Tallis

Great Britain

c. 1505 – 1585 (80 years old)

Father of English church music who composed through four turbulent Tudor monarchies, immortalized by his 40-part choral masterpiece 'Spem in alium'.

Greenwich, Great Britain

42 Full Record →

Arts & Music

37

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Andrea di Pietro della Gondola

Andrea Palladio

Italy

1508 – 1580 (71 years old)

Most influential architect in Western history whose 'The Four Books of Architecture' and harmonious villas (Villa Capra 'La Rotonda') created worldwide Palladianism.

Vicenza, Italy

37 Full Record →

Arts & Music

34

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Tiziano Vecellio

Italy

c. 1488 – 1576 (88 years old)

Supreme master of the Venetian school whose dynamic brushwork, vibrant colorism, and imperial portraits for Emperor Charles V revolutionized European oil painting.

Venice, Italy

34 Full Record →

Arts & Music

45

🕯️ 960

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian)

Tiziano Vecellio

Italy

c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 (~88 years old)

Supreme giant of the Venetian School of painting whose revolutionary mastery of glowing color (*colorito*), expressive brushwork, and monumental compositions influenced generations of European painters from Rubens to Velázquez.

Venice, Italy

45 Full Record →

Arts & Music

55

🕯️ 930

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel de Oude

Netherlands

c. 1525–1530 – 9 September 1569 (~44 years old)

Pioneering Netherlandish Renaissance master celebrated for his panoramic seasonal landscapes, biting allegorical satires (Netherlandish Proverbs), and affectionate, vivid depictions of peasant celebrations and labor.

Brussels, Belgium

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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Arts & Music

39

🕯️ 999

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Italy

6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564 (88 years old)

Titan of the High Renaissance revered as 'Il Divino', whose colossal masterpieces—the marble David, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Last Judgment, and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica—define the pinnacle of Western art.

Rome, Italy

39 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3,820

🕯️ 85

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Lucas Maler / Lucas Cranach der Ältere

Germany

1472 – 1553 (81 years old)

Leading German Renaissance master and official artist of the Protestant Reformation, close ally of Martin Luther.

Weimar, Germany

3,820 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2,606

🕯️ 174

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein der Jüngere

Germany

1 – 1 (46 years old)

Supreme Northern Renaissance portraitist whose precise likenesses defined the court of King Henry VIII and European Humanism.

London, United Kingdom

2,606 Full Record →

Arts & Music

7

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Kamal ud-Din Behzad

کمال‌الدین بهزاد

Afghanistan

c. 1450 – 1535 (85 years old)

Supreme master of Persian miniature painting whose psychological realism and architectural dynamism defined the ateliers of Herat and Tabriz.

Tabriz, Iran

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Arts & Music

37

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Lucas van Leyden

Netherlands

c. 1494 – 1533 (39 years old)

Dutch Renaissance engraver and painter whose prodigious printmaking rivaled Albrecht Dürer and whose monumental 'The Last Judgment' hangs in Leiden's Museum De Lakenhal.

Leiden, Netherlands

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Arts & Music

42

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Quentin Matsys

Quinten Matsijs

Belgium

c. 1466 – 1530 (64 years old)

Founder of the Antwerp school of painting whose masterwork 'The Moneylender and His Wife' established satirical secular genre painting and northern humanist portraiture.

Antwerp, Belgium

42 Full Record →

Arts & Music

41

🕯️ 970

Albrecht Dürer

Germany

21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528 (56 years old)

Foremost genius of the Northern Renaissance who revolutionized woodcut and copper engraving into autonomous fine art forms, unified German gothic detail with Italian classical perspective, and pioneered artistic self-portraiture.

Nuremberg, Germany

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Arts & Music

48

🕯️ 995

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael)

Raffaello Sanzio

Italy

6 April 1483 – 6 April 1520 (37 years old)

Supreme High Renaissance master celebrated as the 'Prince of Painters', whose monumental frescoes in the Vatican Stanze (including The School of Athens) and tender Madonnas personify classical harmony and compositional serenity.

Rome, Italy

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Arts & Music

50

🕯️ 477

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Italy

1452 – 1519 (67 years old)

The quintessential Renaissance genius whose boundless curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. Master of the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and visionary anatomical treatises.

Amboise, France

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Arts & Music

38

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Giovanni Bellini

Italy

c. 1430 – 1516 (86 years old)

Father of the Venetian Renaissance painting school who revolutionized oil painting, atmospheric golden light, and landscape backgrounds, mentoring Giorgione and Titian.

Venice, Italy

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Arts & Music

1,885

🕯️ 105

Hieronymus Bosch

Jheronimus van Aken

Netherlands

1 – 1516 (66 years old)

Visionary Early Netherlandish painter renowned for fantastical triptychs depicting bizarre hybrid creatures, sin, and surreal visions of Hell.

's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

1,885 Full Record →

Arts & Music

37

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Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco

Giorgione

Italy

c. 1477 – c. 1510 (33 years old)

Venetian High Renaissance pioneer whose enigmatic masterworks 'The Tempest' and 'Sleeping Venus' founded poetic landscape painting and moody, evocative tonalism.

Venice, Italy

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Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli)

Arts & Music

45

🕯️ 990

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli)

Sandro Botticelli

Italy

1445 – 17 May 1510 (~65 years old)

Florentine Early Renaissance master whose mythological masterpieces The Birth of Venus and Primavera captured the humanist Neoplatonism of the Lorenzo the Magnificent Medici court with lyrical linear grace.

Florence, Italy

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Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries