1515
Francis I Inherits France
Louis XII died on New Year's Day, leaving the crown to his tall, hook-nosed cousin Francis of Angouleme. Twenty years old and drunk on chivalric romance, Francis vowed to win Milan before spring. He would become the Renaissance's most theatrical patron and Charles V's most tireless rival. His court attracted Italian artists including Leonardo da Vinci, establishing France as a Renaissance center rivaling Italian city-states.
Albuquerque Takes Hormuz
The Portuguese governor Afonso de Albuquerque seized the pearl island of Hormuz, commanding the mouth of the Persian Gulf. With Malacca, Goa, and now Hormuz in his net, he had built a chain of fortified choke points that could squeeze the Indian Ocean spice trade at will. He died exhausted months later.
Marignano: The Giant Battle
For two days French gendarmes, German landsknechts, and Swiss pikemen slaughtered one another outside Marignano in thirty thousand shifting combats. Francis I, fighting in the front rank, finally broke the Swiss reputation for invincibility. He had himself knighted on the field by the Chevalier Bayard. The aftermath permanently altered Swiss foreign policy toward the armed neutrality that defines the country to this day.
Wolsey Becomes Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey, butcher's son from Ipswich, was elevated to cardinal and made Lord Chancellor of England. For the next fifteen years he would be Henry VIII's chief minister, building Hampton Court Palace, running the Tudor state, and eventually falling because he could not deliver the king's divorce from Catherine. His fall in 1529 demonstrated the precariousness of any minister whose fortune depended entirely on a monarch's favor.
Duerer Sketches a Rhinoceros
Without ever seeing the animal, Albrecht Duerer made a woodcut of a rhinoceros based on a written description and rough sketch of an Indian specimen that had been shipped to King Manuel of Portugal. The beast was armored, fantastical, and largely inaccurate. It nonetheless defined the rhinoceros in European imagination for three centuries.
Pineapples Reach Europe
The Portuguese court received the first pineapples brought from Brazil by ship, a spiky, sweet novelty no European had ever seen. Botanical gardens began trying to cultivate them in glasshouses. For centuries the pineapple would remain the emblem of tropical abundance and exotic luxury. The fruit's rarity made it a status symbol, and its image appeared in paintings and architecture as a signifier of exotic luxury.