Venice expels the French from the Kingdom of Naples.

Leonardo’s mother, Caterina, dies in Vinci. Her husband, Accattabriga, with whom he had three daughters and a son, had died four years earlier. Leonardo, like a good notary’s son, records his mother’s death accurately, including funeral expenses, but he misstates the day of the week and her age (60, when she was 58), perhaps betrayed by emotion.

Treaty of Tordesillas: The world is divided in two: between Brazil and Australia in our hemisphere, Portugal’s sphere of influence; the other hemisphere is Spain’s sphere of influence.

The Venetian Giovanni Caboto, a merchant expert in the Orient, is in Valencia working on a project to improve the port, while Christopher Columbus returns to announce that he has discovered a shorter route to the Indies (Cathay). Cabot, who has read Marco Polo and spoken with several merchants from India, deduces from the gifts and artifacts Columbus brought back that Columbus had not landed in India but in a new land. Cabot, instead, suggested reaching the Far East by passing through the high latitudes and then descending through Cipango (Japan).

Pope Alexander VI (the very immoral, ruthless Alexander Borgia), after several pleas from Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, declared him free from all ecclesiastical censure and reinstated him fully into the community of the Church.

European Renaissance: Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Machiavelli, Botticelli. Italy was fundamental to this Risorgimento movement that placed Man at the center.

With the discovery of America, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, chocolate, corn, and tobacco arrived in Europe.

At the Castilian court in Spain, King Mehmet XI is said to have used as his personal guards wild men from Mulhacen (a rugged mountainous area in the Sierra Nevada). They were considered excellent warriors, taciturn, and extremely strong. At the time, they were identified as demons, but more recently, some have interpreted them as a small possibility that they were the last Neanderthals, of whom there is evidence of survival in Spain at least until 31,000 BC.

Leonardo da Vinci correctly concluded that perpetual motion was impossible with any machinery. He was particularly fascinated by the idea that it could be achieved with the aid of worm screws that made water rise, but he rightly concluded that it was a vain chimera. This is all recorded in the Madrid Codex, compiled in the last decade of the 15th century.

Leonardo da Vinci correctly concluded that perpetual motion was impossible with any machinery. He was particularly fascinated by the idea that it could be achieved with the aid of worm screws that made water rise, but he rightly concluded that it was a vain chimera. This is all recorded in the Madrid Codex, compiled in the last decade of the 15th century.

Milan. Dinner attended by Giacomo Andrea, court architect, and Leonardo da Vinci. The convivial discussion at the table centers on Vitruvius’s manuscripts. Andrea decides to draw on a piece of paper his idea of the Vitruvian Man, featuring a human figure with arms outstretched toward the corners of a square within a circle. Upon the arrival of the French in 1499, Andrea was captured by the invading troops, tortured, and virtually killed (quartered). His drawing of the Vitruvian Man, inspired by and therefore similar to Leonardo’s, was rediscovered only in 1980 in an archive in Ferrara.

Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the human skull. He uses a revolutionary graphic representation technique: he shows the skull half sectioned and half unsectioned. He is the first to depict the frontal sinus, just behind the eyebrow. He is also the first to describe the human dentition in complete and detailed detail.

Rome. Gem, a former pretender to the Ottoman throne following the events of Otranto, arrives in the papal entourage. Having lost the contest, he had taken refuge years earlier in Rhodes, where the Knights of St. John had been paid by Sultan Bayezid to keep the dangerous rival outside the Empire’s borders. He was then sold to the French, and finally to the papacy, where he would also be depicted in a painting by Pinturicchio.

Thirteen of Pico della Mirandola’s 900 Theses are considered heretical by the papal commission

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola publishes the 900 Theses in Rome and invites all the scholars to discuss the topics discussed with him as equals, but Pope Innocent VII prohibits this congress and establishes a papal commission that will condemn the theses the following year.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, in Florence, begins work on the 900 Theses, which he sees as an anthology of universal knowledge; it is a colossal collection of dissertations (Conclusiones) on various topics; 402 are taken from various authors while 498 are drawn only from his personal opinion.

Venice. On the island of Lazzaretto, already used as a hospital for the sick, a quarantine is instituted for ships suspected of carrying the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague.

Christopher Columbus asked John II, King of Portugal, for three ships to attempt to reach India by sailing directly west. John II refused: he was now near the Cape of Good Hope, and planned to reach India, rich in spices, by sailing east.

Leonardo da Vinci completed the first version of the Virgin of the Rocks, now housed in the Louvre in Paris. The second version, completed only in 1506, is in London.

Eisblen, Thuringia. Martin Luther is born to Margarethe Ziegler and Hans Luder, a mining entrepreneur.

Raphael was born near Urbino

Leonardo da Vinci in Milan at the court of Ludovico il Moro

Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareja introduces the note B; a historical note: the Italian notation (do, re, mi, etc.) was born around the year 1000 with Guido d’Arezzo. Finally, in the 17th century, the Ut (which is still used in France today) became C for us, thanks to Giovan Battista Doni.

Otranto. Keeping the agreement, the Ottomans let the Aragonese troops enter the city, from which the Turks swarmed. Only a hundred Otranto survivors remained. The Neapolitans also seized the highly efficient Ottoman firearms. The Turkish vessels fleeing toward Albania were caught in a sudden wind, causing a storm surge that sank several ships, while others returned to shore, only to be attacked by battle-hardened Salento men, still exasperated by the war, who put the Turks to the sword. The best Ottoman fighters, the Janissaries, defected by the hundreds to the Aragonese ranks.

Albania. Suleiman Eunuch, the new Albanian Sancakbey for the Ottoman Empire, is wounded and captured by Giovanni Castriota’s militia. He is immediately transferred to the Aragonese south, held hostage by Ferrante.

Ottoman Empire. Upon hearing the news of Mehmet II’s death, the sultanate descends into chaos, an abyss of turmoil, blood, and violence. Initially, panicked members of the divan try to stall by hiding the body. But the secret fails: the janissary corporation revolts. The eldest son, Bayezid, had actually planned the parricide in detail. The grand vizier of Istanbul, Mahmud Pasha, is seized and dismembered by the rioters, his severed head exposed to the crowd. Sixty severed heads are hung on long poles opposite the Imperial Palace. Factories, warehouses, palaces, and shops, mostly Jewish and Venetian-owned, are set ablaze, and their owners killed or robbed.

Monarch’s Meadow, 50 km from Istanbul. Mehmet II the Conqueror, not yet 50 years old, breathes his last.

Monarch’s Meadow, 50 kilometers from Istanbul, on the Asian shore (the same place where Hannibal the Carthaginian committed suicide by poison to avoid falling into the clutches of the Romans). Mehmet II the Conqueror groans and staggers, suffering from excruciating stomach pains. He immediately realizes he’s been poisoned.

The Este orator, Niccolo’ Sadoleto, arrives in Valona. He is welcomed honorably by the Turks and immediately finds himself face to face with Grand Pasha Ahmed “the Toothless.” He immediately senses great hostility and the weakness of his arguments: the offer to exchange Turkish hostages clashes with the Grand Pasha’s total indifference. After three long hours, Sadoleto is finally dismissed. He hurries back to Apulia to deliver the bad news that there is no room for negotiation, and that the Grand Pasha “is a mortal enemy of the Lord King.”

Pope Sixtus IV issued the papal bull Cogimur iubente altissimo, urging all Christian principalities to observe an absolute truce between them, effective June 1, 1481, for three years. The truce was evidently unworkable, given the profound divisions in what would later be called Europe.

The Este orator, Niccolo’ Sadoleto, sets out from Foggia toward Otranto. He carries three letters from the Ottoman sultan, not yet fully deciphered, seized during a naval battle. He is actually very skeptical about the possibility of an agreement, but determined to try. He will pass through parts of Puglia afflicted by the plague, and will be tempted to abandon his journey, nauseated, stunned, and panicked by what he sees.

The orator of the Este family (dukes of Modena) in Naples, Niccolo’ Sadoleto, is entrusted with the mission of going to negotiate with the Turks.

Brindisi. Early in the morning, 19 galleys, 3 fireboats, and 8 support vessels set sail for Salona, the islet off Vlora, Albania. They encountered 32 Ottoman vessels, of which only the front of the formation were in battle trim.

Otranto. The Count of Conversano, Giulio Antonio Acquaviva, decides to take action against the Ottomans. The Aragonese troops attack isolated Ottoman detachments, achieving an initial apparent success thanks to the Turkish retreat, which, however, turns out to be a trap. The feigned escape, a legacy of the Genghis Khanite Mongols, triggers the ambush. The Neapolitan knights are routed. Giovanni da Cremona dies in battle, while Francesco de Monti and Giovanni Piccinino are captured alive. Alvise Gentile takes refuge in Minervino, where he is later captured.

Otranto. Thirty-two more Ottoman ships, commanded by Gedik Ahmed Pasha “the Toothless,” land, loaded with soldiers and supplies.

Andrea Salai (Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno): At the age of 10, he went to live and work with Leonardo da Vinci. His name means “little devil.”

Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain writes her Ode to the Pubic Hair (Cywydd y Cedor), and she complains about her male colleagues who celebrate all other female parts so much, carefully avoiding the most interesting one…

Graz was devastated by the Black Death plague, with locusts spreading across the fields, ruining the crops, and on top of that, the Turks were arriving from the southwest.

Ivan III the Muscovite definitively expels the Khan and the Mongols from Russia

First printing house in London

Venice. The printer Aldus Manutius designs a new typeface, similar to handwriting, called “italic,” and begins printing smaller-format books, called “octavo” because the sheet is folded into eighths. Venice grants Manutius a patent for this typeface, but it is inevitably quickly imitated elsewhere.

Istanbul. Gedik Ahmed Pasha “the Toothless” requests three hundred warships from Sultan Mehmed II to easily capture Naples and then attack Sardinia and Sicily.

Puglia. Soldiers commanded by the Duke of Melfi arrive to aid Otranto, which is besieged by the Turks. They intercept approximately 400 Ottoman raiders who have entered the hinterland, and the battle erupts. The Ottomans are partly dispersed and partly captured. The severed heads of several Turks are paraded in Lecce. Other prisoners are lynched during the parade by the “femene ad colpi de preda.”

Otranto. On the third consecutive day of furious bombardment by the Ottomans. The Turks force a path through. A melee breaks out, and Francesco Zurlo, already wounded in previous skirmishes, is mortally wounded, and his body, still in its armor, lies in the gap. The Aragonese garrison in Naples is routed in the clash. The Turks enter the city, and street fighting ensues. In the frenzy of the Turks, the Venetian consul is also killed, and his residence is sacked. Part of the population takes refuge in the cathedral, where Archbishop Stefano Agricoli is also present. When the Turks break down the gate, he continues to pray until his head is cut off. The macabre trophy is paraded through the city streets. Canons, priests, and Jews are immediately massacred in the city. From various sources (the Benedictine friar Hilarion of Verona, but also the representative of Ludovico il Moro) there are accounts of young women having their dresses cut down to their pubic hair, raped, and then killed. A good portion of the surviving population was deported to Istanbul as slaves and concubines.

Otranto. After another round of bombardments, the Turks finally capture one of the towers. But the villagers still resist.

Otranto. A fleet of Ottoman ships swells on the horizon, menacing, monstrous. Suddenly, to the villagers, the scenes from the Cathedral’s Tree of Evil seem prophetic. They are depictions of frightening beings and wretched humanity, made with 600,000 fine mosaic tiles, laid by Presbyter Pantaleone way back in 1165. The Ottomans will form a military camp outside the walls to prepare for the siege. The immense spectacle of the Turkish camp includes: several thousand men-at-arms, the fearsome janissaries with their characteristic long white hats, the sipahilers of the heavy cavalry with lance and saber, and the polished bronze of seven enormous bombards is clearly visible, as well as stacks of trestle-mounted mortars and targons, the heavy arquebuses as tall as a man, which to fire had to be supported by heavy iron poles driven into the ground. In total, there are 10,000 warriors, with a much larger entourage of armorers, cooks, doctors, and prostitutes. Within the walls of Otranto are approximately 10,000 individuals unfit for war, armed and hastily trained.

Rhodes. The final Ottoman attack on the eastern flank of the city. The bombers concentrate on the Jewish quarter, all the way to the Italian Gate. They manage to open a breach and, after slaughtering the guards, force the bazibozuks—brutal and undisciplined Ottoman fighters—through, clearing the way for the Janissaries. The attack draws in the bulk of the defenders, including the Grand Master himself, who is wounded in battle, and his brother Antoine d’Aubusson, who raises the banners of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. John the Baptist before the enemy. Pressed from behind by the Janissaries and from the front by the Knights of St. John, the bazibozuks retreat in panic amidst smoke and utter confusion. The Ottoman conquest of Rhodes fades once again. In August, the Turks will set sail again, toward Otranto. They will also see the Neapolitan ships, which arrived belatedly to aid Rhodes, pass by.

Rhodes. The Knights of St. John manage to repel yet another Ottoman attack. The overwhelming charge of the Ottoman forces and the vehement response of the Knights of Rhodes, at the end of a savage battle, leaves hundreds of corpses floating in the harbor. Individual episodes of espionage follow, such as that of the Ottoman bombardier chief, the German renegade Georg Beozius, who crosses the lines and surrenders to the Christian knights. However, under pressure, he confesses to being a spy and is executed.

Rhodes. The indomitable Johannites find themselves alone, facing the entire Turkish army of Mehmed II. The fortified citadel is too old for the modern Ottoman heavy guns. The Ottomans first bombard Fort St. Nicholas, which protects the Mandraki, the key military port. Then begins the exhausting and continuous bombardment of the residential area. Earthworks are constructed to absorb the impact of the cannon fire. From Fort St. Nicholas and the Bastion of France, the Hospitallers counterattack, and with crossbowmen and gunners, they cause the sinking of the Turkish vessels that had approached one morning for a sortie.