Renaissance: Did you mean...?

The sculpture group of Laocoön and His Sons, on display in the Vatican since its rediscovery in 1506, depicts the suffering of the Trojan prince and priest Laocoön (brother of Anchises) and his young sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus and is...

The painting Virtue Triumphant over Vice by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431-1506 CE). Completed c. 1502 CE. (Louvre, Paris)

The loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence by the Italian Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 CE). Built 1419 to 1424 CE.

The bronze figure of the Biblical king David by the Italian Renaissance artist Donatello (c. 1386-1466 CE). The figure was sculpted in the 1420s to 1440s CE. (Bargello, Florence)

The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE) is the oldest extant law code in the world. It was written by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) or his son Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) centuries before the famous Code of Hammurabi was...

Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) was the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur in Sumer who initiated the so-called Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE) also known as the Sumerian Renaissance. He is best known as the king who composed the oldest extant...

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) was an Italian poet, writer, and scholar. His most famous and influential work is the Decameron, completed by 1353, in which his ten characters present 100 tales of everyday life. The book covers all manner...

Ganymede (pronounced GAH-nuh-meed) is a youth in Greek mythology who is abducted by Zeus because of his great beauty and brought to Mount Olympus to serve as cupbearer. The story first appears in Homer’s Iliad without any suggestion of a...

Marguerite de Navarre (l. 1492-1549) was a writer, philosopher, diplomat, and Queen of Navarre, sister of King Francois I (Francis I of France, r. 1515-1547), mother of Jeanne d’Albret (l. 1528-1572) and grandmother of Henry IV of France...

Leo Africanus (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan al-Fasi al-Granati, 1485-1554) was a diplomat, merchant traveller and scholar who famously voyaged from Timbuktu to the Niger River and wrote 'The Description of Africa' (La Descrittione...