There are historical figures who have gone down in history more for some inconsequential anecdote than for the significance they had in the context in which they lived. This is what happened with a priest who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries, was the master of ceremonies for Pope Leo X, organized three conclaves […]
Renaissance
Cyriacus of Ancona, the Italian Humanist Considered the Father of Archaeology Who Identified the Pyramids and the Parthenon
Although the German Johann Joachim Winckelmann is generally considered the father of modern archaeology, it’s important to note that this science didn’t suddenly appear in the 18th century but had roots hundreds of years earlier, particularly in the Italian Renaissance, which revived Greco-Roman artistic and cultural classicism. Consequently, one might call one of those multidisciplinary […]
The Decimal Separator Found to Be 150 Years Older than Historians Thought
Fractional decimal notation uses a decimal point (in some places a comma is used) to separate the integer part from the fraction of a quantity. However, the origins of this notation are not entirely clear and have remained obscure for a long time. Recently, researchers have shed new light on this subject, allowing tracing the […]
The Shield-Lantern, a Renaissance Gadget to Fight at Night Blinding the Adversary
The Kunsthistorisches Museum or Museum of Art History in Vienna is one of the most important of its kind in the world. It houses significant collections of art, archaeology, numismatics, and applied arts, including the imperial treasury and the most outstanding collection of works by Rubens, Velázquez, Dürer, Caravaggio, Brueghel, and many others. It also […]
Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli’s model for his Renaissance prince and alleged inspiration for Leonardo’s face of Christ
Cesare Borgia, commonly known as the Duke of Valentinois, gained his state through his father’s fortune, and lost it with that same fortune, despite employing every imaginable means and doing everything that a prudent and skillful man should do to establish himself in a state acquired with the help of arms and the support of […]
Giovanni della Porta, the Renaissance scholar who encrypted messages inside eggs to fool the Inquisition
Giovanni Battista della Porta was born in November 1535 in Vico Equense, a municipality of the Kingdom of Naples that since 1504, by the Treaty of Lyon, belonged to the Crown of Aragon and with the rise to the throne of Joanna the Mad was transformed into a viceroyalty, remaining in Spanish possession until 1704. […]
Simonetta Vespucci, the muse who was a model both for Botticelli and many others, died at the age of 23
If we had to choose the most famous paintings in history, there would certainly be one from Botticelli and, most likely, the one chosen would be The birth of Venus, which is one of the greatest paintings ever produced in Quattrocento. The curious thing is we can also admire the face of this goddess in […]