Renaissance Who's Who

Donato Bramante

• Italian politician.

• Italian secular writer.

• Italian architect and painter.

• German architect and painter.

Baldassare Castiglione

• Italian politician.

• Italian secular writer.

• Italian architect and painter.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Lorenzo de' Medici

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian secular writer.

• Italian architect and painter.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Niccolò Machiavelli

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian secular writer.

• Italian statesman and writer whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Leonardo da Vinci

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. 

• Italian statesman and writer whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Michelangelo

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. 

• Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.Although the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (Vatican; see below) are probably the best known of his works, the artist thought of himself primarily as a sculptor.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Petrarch, Italian in full Francesco Petrarca

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. 

• Italian scholar, poet, and humanist whose poems addressed to Laura, an idealized beloved, contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Raphael

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian painter and architect. He is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican.

• Italian scholar, poet, and humanist whose poems addressed to Laura, an idealized beloved, contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry.

• Italian courtier, diplomat, and writer best known for his dialogue Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier).

Giovanni Boccaccio

• Italian statesman.His family’s patronage of artists, architects, and writers also imposed a considerable burden upon its resources.

• Italian painter and architect. He is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican.

• Italian scholar, poet, and humanist whose poems addressed to Laura, an idealized beloved, contributed to the Renaissance flowering of lyric poetry.

• Italian poet and scholar, best remembered as the author of the earthy tales in the Decameron. With Petrarch he laid the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance and raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity.

Nicolaus Copernicus

• Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific method.

• Italian painter and architect. He is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican.

• Polish astronomer who proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their motions are to be referred; that Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis

• Italian poet and scholar, best remembered as the author of the earthy tales in the Decameron. With Petrarch he laid the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance and raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity.