| * Boldface
titles indicate works in the anthology. |
TEXTS
|
CONTEXTS
|
| 1335
Petrarch's poems to Laura, including Sonnets,
underway (published 1360) |
1338–1453
Hundred Years' War |
1349–1353
Boccaccio's Decameron in
progress |
1348–1350
The Black Death: Petrarch's Laura dies in the plague
|
| 1387–1399
Chaucer's the Canterbury Tales
in progress; he dies in 1400 |
|
| |
1428
Joan of Arc liberates Orléans from the British;
she is burned at the stake for heresy in 1431 |
| |
1453
Constantinople falls to the Turks, increasing dissemination
of Greek culture in Western Europe |
| |
1473
Printing comes to Spain |
| |
1474
William Caxton prints the first book in English |
| |
1492
Columbus discovers America • Expulsion of the Jews
from Spain • Spanish reconquest of Granada •
Expedition of Charles VIII of France |
| 1494
Sebastian Brandt's Ship of Fools |
|
| |
1502
The "Nuremberg Egg," first portable timepiece
|
| |
1503
Leonardo da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa |
| 1511
Erasmus's the Praise of Folly
published |
|
| |
1512
Michelangelo completes the Sistine Chapel ceiling |
| 1516
Erasmus's edition of the New Testament of the Bible
• First publication of Ariosto's Orlando
Furioso |
|
| |
1517
Luther's Ninety-five Theses denouncing abuses of
the Roman Church |
| |
1519
Charles I of Spain becomes Holy Roman emperor, Charles
V |
| 1521
Second edition of Orlando Furioso
|
1521
Luther is excommunicated |
| |
1524
Francis I is captured in battle against the armies of
Charles V |
| |
1527
Rome sacked by the French • Castiglione, now bishop
of Ávila, is accused of treachery • Marguerite
marries Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre |
| 1528
Castiglione's Book of the Courtier
published; he dies the following year |
|
| 1531
Erasmus publishes first complete edition of Aristotle's
works |
|
| 1532
Rabelais's Pantagruel •
Machiavelli's The Prince
• Final publication of Orlando Furioso;
Ariosto dies the following year |
|
| |
1533
Sorbonne accuses Marguerite's chaplain of heresy
|
| 1534
Rabelais's Gargantua |
1534
Henry VIII breaks with Rome and becomes head of the Church
of England |
| 1536
John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion
|
|
| 1546
Rabelais's Third Book |
|
| |
1547
Francis I dies; Henry II accedes to the French throne
|
| 1549
Rabelais's Fourth Book |
1549
England declares war on France |
| 1551
First English translation of More's Utopia;
More had been executed for high treason by Henry VIII
in 1535 |
|
| |
1555
Tobacco brought to Spain from America for the first time
|
| 1558
Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron
published |
|
| |
1559
Spain's most severe Index of banned books |
| |
1563
Council of Trent concludes |
| 1571?
Montaigne's Essays in progress;
books 1 and 2 published in 1580; complete publication
in 1588 |
1571
Spain's battle of Lepanto against the Turks |
| 1581
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered |
|
| |
1586
El Greco paints the Burial of Count Orgaz |
| |
1588
Spain's invincible Armada defeated by England |
| 1590
Sir Philip Sidney's revised Arcadia |
|
| 1596
Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene 1–6
plus the Mutabilitie Cantos |
|
| 1597
Tasso's revised Jerusalem Conquered |
|
| 1597–1604
Cervantes's Don Quixote
in progress; part 1 was published in 1605, part 2 in 1615
|
1598
Philip II of Spain dies; Philip III crowned • Literary
quarrel between Lope de Vega and Luis de Góngora
|
| 1603–04
Shakespeare's Othello appears
|
|
| |
1608
Dutch scientist Johann Lippershey invents the telescope
|
| 1611
King James version of the Bible published |
|
| |
1620
Colony founded by Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts
|
| |
1633
Galileo forced by the Inquisition to repudiate Copernican
theory that earth rotates around the sun |
| 1641
Reneé Descartes publishes his Meditations on
First Philosophy |
|
| |
1643–1715
Reign of Louis XIV of France, "the Sun King"
|
| |
1645–1649
England's Charles I surrenders to antimonarchical
forces of Oliver Cromwell and is executed; monarchy is
abolished |
| 1655?
Milton's Paradise Lost
in progress; published 1667 |
1655
Velázquez paints Las Meninas |
| |
1660
Charles II restores the English monarchy |
 |
|
