Leonardo da Vinci compiled what would later be known as the Hammer Codex or Leicester Codex

The Latin version of Ptolemy’s atlas is republished in Rome by Bernardino Veneto de Vitalibus: it is the first version to include the voyages to the New World.

Leonardo da Vinci in Milan paid by Louis XII, King of France

The Venetian Sebastiano Caboto, son of Giovanni, returns to the vicinity of Newfoundland and then continues north in search of the Northwest Passage, but is stopped by the ice of Hudson Bay.

Leonardo da Vinci compiled the Codex Leicester. It was named after the Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1717. In 1980, it was purchased by Armand Hammer, becoming the Codex Hammer. Finally, in 1994, Bill Gates purchased it and retitled it to its original name: Codex Leicester. It comprises 72 densely written pages, with very long passages and 360 drawings on geology, astronomy, and fluid dynamics. On one section of the page, he wrote: “The sun does not move” in large letters (he usually wrote very small). This was decades before Copernicus or Galileo, but Leonardo leaves us in the dark as to how he reached this conclusion. He also goes on to describe how the oceans do not fall from the Earth due to gravity, and that the Moon does not emit its own light but reflects solar light: “And anyone standing on the Moon would see the Earth illuminated in the same way that we see the Moon illuminated.” He even explains why the sky is blue: it’s not its true color but is caused by humidity in the air, which in tiny atomic particles captures sunlight and re-emits it as blue. Finally, after climbing Monte Rosa, he realizes that the sky up there is indeed darker because there is less air separating us from darkness.

Rome. The statue of Laocoon was found during excavations in a vineyard on the Oppian Hill, owned by Felice de Fredis, near Nero’s Domus Aurea. The excavation, of astonishing magnitude according to contemporary accounts, was personally witnessed, among others, by the sculptor Michelangelo and the architect Giuliano da Sangallo. The latter had been sent by the Pope to assess the find. It was Giuliano da Sangallo himself who identified the still partially buried fragments as the sculpture cited by Pliny. The sculptural group of Laocoon and His Sons is a marble sculpture (height 242 cm) by the sculptors Agesander, Athanodorus, and Polydorus, dating to the 1st century AD and housed in the Pio-Clementino Museum of the Vatican Museums in Vatican City. It depicts the famous episode narrated in the Aeneid in which the Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons are attacked by sea serpents. The statue is a Roman copy of a Greek marble original. The statue was placed in the Vatican Museums that same year by order of Pope Julius II, and they were inaugurated with it. However, they were not opened to the public until 1771.

Venice. Giovanni Soro is appointed secretary of ciphers. He is the first European expert cryptanalyst. Before him, in the 9th century in Baghdad, Abu Yusuf Qub ibn Is-haq ibn as-Sabbah ibn Omran ibn Ismail al-Kindi (or simply al-Kindi) had developed encryption and decryption techniques.

Pope Julius II calls the Swiss Guards to Rome; they have been serving under the papacy ever since.

Suez. The Venetians, reviving an ancient attempt made centuries earlier to build a canal that had subsequently filled with sand, attempted to convince the Mamluk sultan to undertake the undertaking, which would radically change the global military and commercial balance. Work began in 1530 but would not be decisive until 1586 with the arrival of the Ottomans, who considered it to be of military, not commercial, importance: to protect Mecca from Christian attacks and to carry the war to India. But this Ottoman attempt, too, was unsuccessful, and the canal was never completed.

Michelangelo Buonarroti creates David in Florence

In a treaty with the Turks, Venice renounced its ambitions over many cities in Albania and Greece. This marked a secular turning point in Venetian policy, which for the first time turned more toward the mainland. This treaty thus marked the beginning of the decline of Venice’s maritime power, previously considered the dominant power in the Mediterranean.

Tuscany. Francesco del Giocondo hired Leonardo in Vinci to paint a portrait of his wife, 24-year-old Lisa Gherardini, later Lisa del Giocondo. Lisa would later be portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci in the famous painting “La Gioconda” (Mona Lisa). Leonardo likely accepted because he was a family friend, but also because he had no delivery obligations, as he had with royalty. Leonardo, as often happened to him, never finished the work, much less delivered it to Francesco, and therefore was never even paid (as, indeed, often happened to him).

Cesare Borgia commits one of his trademark acts of brutality: He had previously appointed a tyrant, Ramiro de Lorca, to govern Cesena. When the population revolts against him, he has him cut in two in the central square, to demonstrate that he, not Ramiro de Lorca, was the cruel one. The population is shocked and disturbed.

Martin Luther enters the University of Erfurt.

The consuls of the wool guild and the Opera del Duomo of Florence commissioned Michelangelo to create a statue of King David, to be placed in one of the external buttresses of the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Fiore. The enormous block of marble had already been sketched out by Agostino di Duccio between 1463 and 1464, and then by Antonio Rossellino in 1476, but both had abandoned it due to the poor quality of the piece. Michelangelo’s skill was indispensable. From that disastrous piece of marble, already partially worked and of poor quality, he created Michelangelo’s David, completed in 1504. A masterpiece.

Persia. The Safavid dynasty begins, lasting until 1736. This dynasty will adopt Shi’ism as the state doctrine. The Shi’ite nature of the Safavid family cannot be separated from its Sufi character, that is, the substantial rejection of Sunni orthodoxy (sunna, or tradition/orthodoxy), which characterized the rigid doctrinal structure of the Seljuks and Mamluks before the Mongol invasion.

Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, reconquered the territories of Romagna, defeating various local lords, including the famous Caterina Sforza, later receiving the title of Duke of Romagna from his father. He conquered Imola, Forlì, Pesaro, Faenza, Rimini, and Cesena, and in May 1501 he reached the walls of Florence, which capitulated, agreeing to pay Borgia 36,000 florins a year for his protection. In June of the following year, however, Cesare Borgia returned to Florence, besieging it again and threatening to sack it. The Florentines chose two negotiators: Francesco Solderini and the most capable young diplomat they had, Niccolò Macchiavelli. Somehow they reached an agreement, and Leonardo da Vinci (perhaps part of the deal) transferred to Cesare Borgia’s pay.

Niccolo’ Tartaglia and Scipione Ferro, independently, claim to have succeeded in solving third-degree equations

The Spanish conquistadors rage in South and Central North America: Cortes in North America and Pizarro in South America

Portugal. Vasco da Gama has just returned from his first mission to India, and sets sail on a second, but gigantic, mission to the Indies. Old Diaz also embarks, sadly to his death. Thirteen ships with 1,500 men set sail. The profit prospects for pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and nails are enormous: the purchase price for cinnamon alone is 2.5 ducats per quintal, while in Lisbon it sells for 80 ducats per quintal and in Venice for 50 ducats per quintal. Spain may have reached the Indies from the West with Columbus, but there’s no sign of spices. From now on, Portugal will lead the spice trade in Europe.

30,000 titles have already been published with the Gutenberg press.

The Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral reaches Brazil in today’s Porto Seguro, then, having resumed his route towards the south-east, he lands in Calicut and Cochin

Until the 15th century, the human species lived on several self-contained islands. Only in the 15th century did it begin to expand on a truly global scale. The first to do so were the Europeans from the western shore of the continent: the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French.

The Portuguese established the slave trade between Benin and the Americas. In reality, when they arrived, they found a fully functioning slave market, run by the Arabs since the 2nd century AD.

England. The country converts to coal for home heating, abandoning wood, which had by then decimated the forests, coupled with demand from the Royal Navy.

Venice. In the Republic’s economic budget (excluding Cyprus and the recent acquisitions of Polesine, Cervia, Cremona, and Puglia), presented using double-entry accounting, income and expenditure amount to 1,150,000 gold ducats, of which 230,000 are sales taxes, 100,000 are salt sales, 330,000 are mainland cities, 200,000 are overseas domains, and only 160,000 are direct taxes. The largest expenditure items are 26,000 in salaries, 155,000 in interest on government bonds, 90,000 in expenses for mainland cities, 200,000 for overseas cities, and a net surplus, available for wars, of 620,000 ducats, or almost 60% of the total! It should also be noted that Venice limits the use of direct taxes to exceptional periods: the norm is zero direct taxes, and the numbers reported above make it clear why there was no need for them.

The future Western powers (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) controlled just 10% of the earth’s surface and 16% of the population. By 1913, they would control 60% of the land and population and 79% of the world’s GDP. Life expectancy in England in 1913 was double that of India. In 1500, of the ten most populous cities in the world, only one, Paris, was European. Beijing (700,000 inhabitants) came first, while Paris had 200,000, and London only 50,000. By 1900, the situation was reversed: Tokyo was the only non-Western city on the list, and London was first. Scholar Nial Ferguson identifies the main reasons for this unexpected success as: Competition (and therefore Free Market and Capitalism), Science (and therefore Technology and Weapons), Property Rights, Medicine, Consumer Society (and therefore Industry), and Work Ethic.

Portuguese Vasco da Gama returns to Portugal after his first trip to India.

The Turks occupy the Venetian strongholds of Modone and Corone. The two islands were considered Venice’s eyes to the East. Then the Turks invade Dalmatia and plunder Friuli, and once again the smoke from the fires can be seen from the top of St. Mark’s bell tower.

Girolamo Savonarola was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and the following year he was hanged and burned at the stake as a “heretic, schismatic, and for preaching new things.” His works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. Savonarola’s writings were rehabilitated by the Church in the following centuries, to the point of being included in important theological treatises.

John Cabot, on his ship Matthew (named after his wife Mattea), with a crew of only 18 men, including two merchants from Bristol, crossed the Atlantic in 35 days and landed in Newfoundland. Here he planted the English flag, the papal flag, and that of St. Mark. He then sailed 300 leagues south to present-day Maine, discovering other previously unknown lands. He believed he had proved they were not Cathay (India) and returned to England, convincing King Henry VII of his theory.

Vasco de Gama circumnavigates Africa

John Cabot made the first attempt to cross the Atlantic, setting sail from Bristol. This would have been the most convenient route for the English.

The first of the ten gurus of Sikhism becomes a guru. Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji founded Sikhism and, traveling thousands of miles, preached meditation on the name of the Creator. The religion developed and evolved during times of religious persecution, gaining converts from both Hinduism and Islam. The Mughal rulers of India tortured and executed two of the Sikh gurus, Guru Arjan ji (1563–1605) and Guru Tegh Bahadur ji (1621–1675), after they refused to convert to Islam. The persecution of the Sikhs prompted the founding of the “Khalsa”—by Guru Gobind Singh ji in 1699—as an order to protect freedom of conscience and religion, with members embodying the qualities of a Sant-Sipahi, a “saintly soldier.” In April 1699, to eliminate all differences between people (of caste, wealth, etc.), Guru Gobind Singh Ji (tenth Sikh guru) introduced baptism (amrit), by which every man took the surname “Singh” (lion) and every woman “Kaur” (princess) and which required for men, but also for women, the assumption of five symbols (kakaar).

In Northern Europe, an indoor version of croquet spread, played on a green mat to simulate grass. It was called billiards.

Leonardo da Vinci completed the painting “The Beautiful Princess.” Five centuries later, the portrait, unknown to its author, was auctioned in 1998 for $18,000 at Christie’s in Manhattan, New York. It sold for $21,850. Collector Peter Silvermann was unable to secure the work, which he believed might be a genuine Leonardo. Then, nine years later, in 2007, Peter Silvermann saw the painting again at Kate Ganz’s art gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and managed to purchase it for approximately the same price as the auction. An incredible, detailed, and lengthy effort would follow to demonstrate that it was indeed a genuine work by Leonardo da Vinci. The work involved detective work, technical work, history, and relational work. But the definitive proof would come from the fact that one edge of the painting (painted on velvet) was poorly cut, with several visible pinholes. The painting was therefore likely part of a bound volume, from which it was cut. The volume, which commemorates the wedding of Bianca Sforza, was traced to the National Library in Warsaw in 2010, and the page edge matches exactly, as do three of the five punch holes (the other two are likely from a later binding). The painting was completed by Leonardo in 1496.