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.