Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Literature & Poetry

50

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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Miguel de Cervantes

Spain

29 September 1547 (Baptism) – 22 April 1616 (~69 years old)

Titan of the Spanish Golden Age and creator of Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605/1615), universally revered as the first modern European novel and the eternal archetype of the noble dreamer tilting at windmills.

Madrid, Spain

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Humanities

7

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Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn al-Qadi

أحمد بن محمد بن أبي العافية بن القاضي

Morocco

1552 – 1616 (63 years old)

Celebrated Moroccan historian, judge, and biographer whose works Jadhwat al-Iqtibas and Durrat al-Hijal provide the definitive biographical records of scholars and nobles in early modern Fez and Morocco.

Fez, Morocco

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Military Leaders & Strategists

44

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Sanada Yukimura (Sanada Nobushige)

真田幸村 / 真田信繁

Japan

1 – 1615 (48 years old)

Legendary Sengoku period samurai general hailed as 'The Number One Warrior in Japan' and 'The Crimson Demon of War' for his heroic defense of Osaka Castle.

Osaka, Japan

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Literature & Poetry

8

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Pierre de Bourdeille (Brantôme)

Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur et abbé de Brantôme

France

c. 1540 – 1614 (74 years old)

French soldier, courtier, and unabashed memoirist whose scandalous, vivid chronicles Vies des dames galantes and Vies des grands capitaines captured the intrigues, duels, and amorous escapades of the Valois Renaissance court.

Brantôme en Périgord (Dordogne), France

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Humanitarian & Peace

38

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Saint Camillus de Lellis

Camillo de Lellis

Italy

1550 – 1614 (64 years old)

Prêtre italien et saint, fondateur de l'Ordre des Camilliens, inventeur des premières ambulances de guerre et pionnier de l'utilisation de la croix rouge sur les champs de bataille.

Rome, Italy

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Arts & Music

1,242

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El Greco

Doménikos Theotokópoulos / Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος

Greece

1541 – 1614 (72 years old)

Visionary master of the Spanish Renaissance whose elongated figures and dramatic acid colors anticipated Expressionism.

Toledo, Spain

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Religious Figures & Theologians

16

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Ahmad ibn Abi Mahalli

أحمد بن عبد الله بن أبي محلي

Morocco

1559 – 1613 (54 years old)

Formidable 16th-century southern Moroccan Sufi scholar, jurist, and social rebel whose religious writings condemned court corruption and who governed Marrakesh from 1610 to 1613.

Marrakesh, Morocco

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Arts & Music

34

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Carlo Gesualdo

Carlo Gesualdo di Venosa

Italy

1566 – 1613 (47 years old)

Italian Renaissance nobleman and composer whose radical, intensely chromatic madrigals and sacred responsories anticipated modern harmony by three centuries.

Gesualdo, Italy

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Politics

6

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Henri Membertou

Membertou

Canada

c. 1507 – 18 September 1611 (104 years old)

Venerated Mi'kmaq Grand Chief who welcomed French settlers to Port Royal in 1605, entering into the historic 1610 Concordat with the Holy See.

Port Royal, Canada

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Humanities

7

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Muhammad ibn Ali al-Hawzali

محمد بن علي الهوزالي

Morocco

c. 1540 – 1611 (~71 years old)

Distinguished scholar and judge of Taroudant who codified customary Berber tribal covenants within classical Maliki jurisprudence during the Saadian renaissance.

Taroudant, Morocco

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Military Leaders & Strategists

34

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Honda Tadakatsu

本多 忠勝

Japan

1548 – 1610 (62 years old)

Fabled Japanese samurai warrior and general of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the 'Four Heavenly Kings of the Tokugawa', who fought in over fifty-seven battles without ever receiving a significant wound.

Kuwana (Mie), Japan

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Literature & Poetry

8

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Jan Moretus

Jan Moretus

Belgium

1543 – 1610 (67 years old)

Antwerp humanist scholar and printer who inherited the Officina Plantiniana from his father-in-law Christophe Plantin, expanding the publishing empire and publishing the seminal works of Justus Lipsius.

Antwerp, Belgium

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

28

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Uthman Dey

عثمان داي

Turkey

c. 1550 – 1610 (~60 years old)

Dey of Tunis from 1598 to 1610 who transformed the city into an autonomous commercial power and generously welcomed over 50,000 Morisco refugees expelled from Spain in 1609.

Tunis, Tunisia

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Arts & Music

41

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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi

Italy

29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610 (38 years old)

Revolutionary Italian Baroque painter who electrified Europe by casting dramatic spotlight beams through pitch-black shadows (tenebrism) and depicting saints and martyrs with unsparing, gritty plebeian realism.

Porto Ercole (Tuscany), Italy

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Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

37

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Henry IV of France (Good King Henry)

Henri IV (Le Vert Galant)

France

1553 – 1610 (56 years old)

First Bourbon King of France who ended the Wars of Religion by issuing the Edict of Nantes and promised 'a chicken in every pot'.

Saint-Denis, Paris, France

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Arts & Music

12

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Abu al-Abbas Ahmad al-Daqqun

أحمد الدقون النجار

Morocco

c. 1545 – 1610 (~65 years old)

Master Moroccan artisan and woodcarver who directed the execution of the intricate carved cedarwood ceilings and calligraphic stuccowork of the Saadian Tombs and El Badi Palace in Marrakech.

Marrakech, Morocco

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Religious Figures & Theologians

47

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Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius

Seventeen Provinces

1559 – 1609 (50 years old)

Dutch Reformed theologian and professor at Leiden University whose challenge to strict Calvinist predestination founded Arminianism, affirming human free will and conditional election.

Leiden, Netherlands

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Religious Figures & Theologians

46

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Judah Loew ben Bezalel

יהודה ליווא בן בצלאל

Poland

c. 1520 – 1609 (89 years old)

Towering Central European talmudist, philosopher, and mystic legendary for the creation of the Golem and celebrated for his profound dialectical philosophy of Torah and nature.

Prague, Czech Republic

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