Leonardo da Vinci to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

Continued from previous post.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.  Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio.

Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488), was an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter who worked at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence in the early renaissance.  Several great artists passed through his workshop as apprentices including Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 – 11 January 1494) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Among his many apprentices was Michelangelo.  In his father's shop, Vasari reports, Domenico made portraits of the passers-by and visitors to the shop: "when he painted the country people or anyone who passed through his studio he immediately captured their likeness". He was eventually apprenticed to Alesso Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic.

Alesso Baldovinetti (14 October 1425 – 29 August 1499) was an Italian early Renaissance painter.  In 1497 he completed a series of frescoes from the Old Testament, which contained many portraits of leading Florentine citizens, and was valued at a thousand gold florins by a committee which included Cosimo Rosselli. Only some defaced fragments of it now remain.

Cosimo Rosselli (1439 – 1507) was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in his birthplace of Florence. In 1480, Rosselli was one of the painters called by Pope Sixtus IV to work at the wall decoration of the Sistine Chapel.

Pope Sixtus IV (21 July 1414 – 12 August 1484), born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484.  As a temporal prince who constructed stout fortresses in the Papal States, Sixtus IV committed himself to Venice's aggression against Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, inciting the Venetians to attack in 1482 in the so-called War of Ferrara.

Ercole I d'Este (26 October 1431 – 15 June 1505) was Duke of Ferrara from 1471 until 1505. He was a member of the house of Este. He was nicknamed North Wind and the Diamond.  In 1473, Ercole met his spouse Eleonora of Aragon, who had been escorted by a retinue which included the poet Boiardo. Five years later Ercole invested Boiardo with the governorship of Reggio, an office which he filled with noted success till his death.

Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440/1 – December 20, 1494) was an Italian Renaissance poet. He is best remembered for his grandiose poem of chivalry and romance Orlando Innamorato. In 1469, Borso d'Este, duke of Ferrara, sent Boiardo to meet Frederick III.

Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (September 21, 1415 – August 19, 1493) was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452. In 1442, Frederick allied himself with Rudolf Stüssi, burgomaster of Zürich, against the Old Swiss Confederacy in the Old Zürich War.

Rudolf Stüssi (died July 22, 1443) served as burgomaster of Zürich during the mid-fifteenth century. His expansionist ambitions for Zurich caused the Old Zürich War (1440–46). In 1433, he traveled to Rome as a representative of Zürich to attend the coronation of Sigismund of Luxembourg. There he was knighted.

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (14 February 1368 – 9 December 1437) was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411.  In 1396 Sigismund led Christian allies in the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages against the Ottoman Empire, and was defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis by forces led by Bayezid I.

Continued in the next post.

Joseph Duchesne to Leonardo da Vinci

Continued from previous post.

Joseph Duchesne or du Chesne (c.1544-1609) was a French physician. A follower of Paracelsus, he is now remembered for important if transitional alchemical theories.  In 1598, Duchesne became the royal physician attending Henry IV of France.

Henry IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), was King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France.  During his reign, Henry IV worked through his faithful right-hand man, the minister Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, to regularise state finance, promote agriculture, drain swamps to create productive crop lands, undertake many public works, and encourage education, as with the creation of the Collège Royal Henri-le-Grand in La Flèche (today Prytanée Militaire de la Flèche).

Maximilien de Béthune, first Duke of Sully (13 December 1560 – 22 December 1641) was the doughty soldier, French minister, staunch Huguenot and faithful right-hand man who assisted Henry IV of France in the rule of France.  In 1603, he represented Henry at the court of James I of England.

James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. He was baptised "Charles James" on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. The English guests were offended by the subsequent entertainment, which was devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez and depicted them as satyrs with tails.

Bastian Pagez was a French servant and musician at the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. When Mary was exiled in England, Bastian and his family continued in her service. Bastian is first recorded at the Scottish court in 1565 when Mary and Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley bought him an elaborate and expensive suit of clothes costing over £100 Scots as a mark of their favour.

Henry Stewart or Stuart, 1st Duke of Albany (7 December 1545 — 10 February 1567), styled Lord Darnley before 1565, was king consort of Scotland and murdered at Kirk o'Field. In 1565 Henry wed Mary, Queen of Scots, despite the efforts of English ambassador Thomas Randolph to prevent the marriage.

Thomas Randolph (1523–1590) was an English ambassador serving Elizabeth I of England.  Among his fellow-students and intimates while living in Paris was Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange.

Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange (c. 1520 – 3 August 1573), Scottish politician and soldier, William fought for the Scottish reformation but ended his career holding Edinburgh castle on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots and was hanged at the conclusion of a long siege.  Grange was in London in December 1553, discussing border issues with the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles.

Antoine, 1st comte de Noailles (1504–1562) became admiral of France, and was ambassador in England during three important years, 1553–1556. His career started at the age of 25 with a trip with Francis de la Tour, Vidscount of Turenne, to Spain to arrange the marriage of Francis I of France with Eleanor of Austria, and he signed the final marriage contract.

Francis I (12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch.  Francis patronized many great artists of his time, including Leonardo da Vinci, who was persuaded to make France his home during his last years.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.  Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio.

Continued in the next post.

Nicolas Fouquet to Joseph Duchesne

Continued from previous post.

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (January 27, 1615 – March 23, 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. From 1642 to 1650, he held various intendancies, at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.

Jules Mazarin (1602–1661), was a French-Italian cardinal, diplomat, and politician, who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death. At seventeen he accompanied Girolamo Colonna, one of the sons of Filippo I Colonna, to the university of Alcalá de Henares in Spain, to serve as his chamberlain.

Girolamo Colonna (23 March 1604 – 4 September 1666) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and member of the noble Colonna family.  After the death of Pope Urban, he participated in the Papal conclave of 1644 that elected Pope Innocent X.  Pope Innocent X later appointed Colonna as Ambassador of the Holy See to Spain.

Pope Innocent X (6 May 1574 – 7 January 1655), was Pope from 1644 to 1655.  In a strong show of support for the independent (and Catholic) Confederate Ireland during the Civil War (1642–49), the Pope sent as nuncio extraordinary to Ireland, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, archbishop of Fermo. Rinuccini arrived at Kilkenny with a large quantity of arms, military supplies including twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder, and a very large sum of money.

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini (September 15, 1592[1] – December 28, 1653) was a Roman Catholic archbishop in the mid seventeenth century. He was a noted legal scholar who became chamberlain to Pope Gregory XV, who made him the Archbishop of Fermo in Italy. In Ireland, Rinuccini backed Owen Roe O'Neill, who used his Ulster army to fight against his former comrades who had accepted a deal with the English Royalists to try to prevent a Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland in 1648.

Owen Roe O'Neill ("Red Owen", ca. 1590–1649), was a seventeenth century soldier and one of the most famous of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster.  In 1648 Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, repelled Owen's military advance on Kerry in Ireland, and forced him back to Ulster.

Murrough McDermod O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin and 6th Baron Inchiquin (1614–1674). O'Brien studied war in the Spanish service and fought against the confederate Catholics on the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. On 20 August, 1642, Inchiquin, accompanied by Barrymore, Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeaky, and Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, with only two thousand foot and four hundred horse, overthrew General Garret Barry at Battle of Liscarrol with seven thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse.

Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery (25 April 1621 – 16 October 1679) was a soldier, dramatist and politician from the British Isles who sat in the House of Commons of England at various times between 1654 and 1679.  After the execution of King Charles I, he originated a scheme to bring about the Restoration [of the English monarchy]. On his way abroad to consult with King Charles II, he was unexpectedly visited by Oliver Cromwell in London. Cromwell informed him that his plans were well known to the council, and warned him of the consequence of persisting in them. Cromwell offered him a command in Ireland against the rebels that entailed no obligations except faithful service. It was accepted.

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English military and political leader who was part of the joint republican, military and parliamentarian effort that overthrew the Stuart monarchy as a result of the English Civil War, and was subsequently invited by his fellow leaders to assume a head of state role in 1653. As such, Cromwell ruled as "Lord Protector" for a five-year segment (1653–58) of the 11-year period of republican Commonwealth and protectorate rule of England, and nominally of Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In 1628 Cromwell sought treatment for valde melancolicus (depression) from London doctor Theodore de Mayerne.

Sir Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (September 28, 1573 – March 22, 1654 or 1655) was a Swiss-born physician who treated kings of France and England and advanced the theories of Paracelsus.  Mayerne studied first in Geneve and later moved to the University of Heidelberg. Later he moved to Montpellier to study medicine, graduated 1596 and received his doctorate in 1597. His dissertation defended the use of chemical remedies in medicine, under the guidance of Joseph du Chesne; this was the first intimation of his interest in Paracelsian theorie

Joseph Duchesne or du Chesne (c.1544-1609) was a French physician. A follower of Paracelsus, he is now remembered for important if transitional alchemical theories.  In 1598, Duchesne became the royal physician attending Henry IV of France.



Continued in the next post.

Timothy Dwight IV to Nicolas Fouquet

Continued from previous post

Timothy Dwight IV (May 14, 1752 – January 11, 1817) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817). Licensed to preach in 1777, he was appointed by Congress chaplain in General Samuel Holden Parsons's Connecticut Continental Brigade. He served with distinction, inspiring the troops with his sermons and the stirring war songs he composed, the most famous of which is "Columbia".

Samuel Holden Parsons (May 14, 1737 – November 17, 1789) was an American lawyer, jurist, general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and a pioneer to the Ohio Country. In August 1776 Congress appointed Parsons Brigadier General in the Continental Army. He was ordered to New York with his brigade of about 2,500 men. Stationed in Brooklyn, Parsons was in the thick of the fighting with British troops under William Alexander, Lord Stirling on August 17, 1776.

William Alexander, Lord Stirling (1726 New York City – 15 January 1783), who claimed the disputed title of Earl of Stirling, was an American major-general during the American Revolutionary War. During the French and Indian War, he joined the British Army Commissariat, where he became aide-de-camp to Governor William Shirley. He traveled to London in 1756 to testify on behalf of Shirley, who was facing charges of dereliction of duty.

William Shirley (2 December 1694 – 24 March 1771) was a British colonial administrator who served twice as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and as Governor of the Bahamas in the 1760s.  In 1745 Governor Shirley appointed William Pepperrell to command an expedition to capture Louisbourg.

 Sir William Pepperrell, 1st Baronet (27 June 1696 – 6 July 1759) was a merchant and soldier in Colonial Massachusetts. He is widely remembered for organizing, financing, and leading the 1745 expedition that captured the French garrison at Fortress Louisbourg during King George's War. During his day Pepperrell was called "the hero of Louisburg," a victory celebrated in the name of Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood.  During the siege, he was supported by a British naval squadron under Captain Peter Warren.

Sir Peter Warren, KB (10 March 1703 – 29 July 1752) was a British naval officer from Ireland who commanded the naval forces in the attack on the French fortress of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia in 1745. He later sat as MP for Westminster.  He was second in command of the British fleet on the Devonshire at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1747 under Admiral George Anson.

Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson PC, FRS, RN (23 April 1697 – 6 June 1762) was a British admiral and a wealthy aristocrat, noted for his circumnavigation of the globe and his role overseeing the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War.  In May 1747, he commanded the fleet that defeated the French Admiral de la Jonquière at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre

Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière (April 18, 1685 – March 17, 1752) was a French admiral and Governor General of New France from March 1, 1746 until his death in 1752. He joined the navy when he was twelve, and fought under René Duguay-Trouin.

 

René Duguay-Trouin, (10 June 1673 - 1736) was a famous French corsair of Saint-Malo. He had a brilliant privateering and naval career and eventually became "Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King" (i.e. admiral), and a Commander in the Order of Saint-Louis. Ten ships of the French Navy were named in his honour.  On 6 June 1692, King Louis XIV of France handed him command of a forty-gun ship, the Hercule.

Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. He holds the distinction of being the longest-reigning king in European history, reigning for 72 years and 110 days. In 1665 Louis had Nicolas Fouquet, the Surintendant des Finances, charged with Embezzlement. The Parlement found him guilty and sentenced him to exile. However, Louis commuted the sentence to life-imprisonment and also abolished Fouquet's post.

Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (January 27, 1615 – March 23, 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. From 1642 to 1650, he held various intendancies, at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.

Continued in the next post.

Bob Welch to Timothy Dwight IV

Bob Welch (August 31, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American musician. A former member of Fleetwood Mac, Welch had a briefly successful solo career in the late 1970s. His singles included "Hot Love, Cold World", "Ebony Eyes", "Precious Love", and his signature "Sentimental Lady".   While playing in Paris with a trio called Head West, Welsh became friends with future CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, and years later Ed came to Sunset Sound to hang out during the making of the album, French Kiss.

Ed Bradley (June 22, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes. In 1974, he moved to Washington, D.C., and was promoted to covering the Carter campaign in 1976. He then became CBS News' White House correspondent (the first black White House television correspondent).

Jimmy Carter (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 1940s/early 50s, Carter joined the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program and served under Captain Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him.

Hyman G. Rickover (January 27, 1900 – July 8, 1986) was a four-star admiral of the United States Navy who directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of Naval Reactors. While attending John Marshall High School in Chicago, from where he graduated with honors in 1918, Rickover held a full-time job delivering Western Union telegrams, through which he became acquainted with U.S. Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. By way of the intervention of a family friend, Sabath, himself a Czech Jewish immigrant, nominated Rickover for appointment to the United States Naval Academy.

Adolph J. Sabath (April 4, 1866 - November 6, 1952), was an American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Chicago, Illinois, from 1907 until his death.  In 1911, he received much positive attention in the Czech community in Chicago for his fundraising efforts in the search for Elsie Paroubek, and paid for the child's funeral when her body was discovered.

Elsie Paroubek (1906–1911) was a Czech-American girl who was the victim of kidnapping and murder in the spring of 1911. Her disappearance and the subsequent search for her preoccupied Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota law enforcement for six weeks, and her funeral was attended by between 2,000 and 3,000 people. On April 30,1911, the superintendent of schools Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, had requested that all schoolchildren in the Chicago area organize neighborhood searches during spring break.

Ella Flagg Young (15 January 1845 - October 26, 1918) was an American educator and author, who also founded and edited The Educational Bi-Monthly, a free journal for teachers.  She graduated in 1862 from the Chicago Normal School, and later studied at the University of Chicago under John Dewey at age 55 and received her Ph.D. in 1900.

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform.  After studying with George Sylvester Morris, Charles Sanders Peirce, Herbert Baxter Adams, and G. Stanley Hall, Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, and is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism.  One of his Harvard instructors, Charles William Eliot, formed an unfavorable opinion of Peirce. This opinion proved fateful, because Eliot, while President of Harvard 1869–1909—a period encompassing nearly all of Peirce's working life—repeatedly vetoed Harvard's employing Peirce in any capacity.

Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university. Eliot served until 1909, having the longest term as president in the university's history.  In the fall of 1854 he was appointed Tutor in Mathematics at Harvard and studied chemistry with Josiah P. Cooke.

Josiah Parsons Cooke (October 12, 1827 – September 3, 1894) was an American scientist who worked at Harvard University and was instrumental in the measurement of atomic weights.  He attended Boston Latin School and as a teenager set up his own chemical laboratory, partly due to an interest sparked by lectures of Yale's Benjamin Silliman.

Benjamin Silliman (8 August 1779 – 24 November 1864) was an American chemist, one of the first American professors of science (at Yale University), and the first to distill petroleum.   He was educated at Yale, receiving an A.B. degree in 1796 and an A.M. in 1799. He studied law with Simeon Baldwin from 1798 to 1799 and became a tutor at Yale from 1799 to 1802. He was admitted to the bar in 1802. President Timothy Dwight IV of Yale proposed that he equip himself to teach in chemistry and natural history and accept a new professorship at the university. 

Timothy Dwight IV (May 14, 1752 – January 11, 1817) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817). Licensed to preach in 1777, he was appointed by Congress chaplain in General Samuel Holden Parsons's Connecticut Continental Brigade. He served with distinction, inspiring the troops with his sermons and the stirring war songs he composed, the most famous of which is "Columbia".


Continued in the next post.