1401 ­ A competition is held for the second bronze door for the Baptistery in Florence. Designs are submitted by Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, who is judged the winner. The two different conceptions of the panel present a picture of the cultural climate in Florence, which in 1401 was still split between the persistence of the late Gothic style and the new dictates of the Renaissance approach to perspective and the distribution of masses.
1418 ­ Filippo Brunelleschi wins the competition for the construction of the dome of Florence Cathedral. Completed in 1438, it became the symbol of the new architecture of Humanism.
1434 ­ Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder is proclaimed “Pater Patriae” in Florence.
Jan van Eyck paints the portrait of the merchant Giovanni Arnolfini from Lucca together with his wife, a work that attests to the growing trade and cultural links between the Italian courts and Flanders.
1447 ­ In Mainz, J. Gutenberg publishes a Bible in Latin, the first book to be printed using movable metal type.
1478 ­ Sandro Botticelli paints the Primavera (The Spring) for the Medici villa of Castello (now in the Uffizi).
1492 ­ Christopher Columbus discovers a new continent, which will be given the name America after another Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci.
Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of Florence.
Granada, the last Arab possession on Spanish territory, falls.
1494 ­ Charles VIII, King of France, invades Italy and occupies Naples.
The Medici are expelled from Florence and a republic is founded with the Dominican friar Gerolamo Savonarola at its head. After the fall of the republic, Savonarola is burned at the stake for heresy.
