1503 ­ The Spanish defeat the French and occupy Naples; Spanish rule over the whole of Southern Italy is sanctioned by the Treaty of Lyons, signed the following year.
Leonardo da Vinci paints his most famous picture, the Mona Lisa, which he will take to France in 1516.
Lucas Cranach, the future court painter of Frederick the Wise in Saxony, paints the Crucifixion and founds the Danube School.
Raphael paints "The Oddi Altarpiece" for the church of San Francesco in Perugia (Rome, Vatican Art Gallery).
1508-11 ­ Michelangelo Buonarroti starts to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Raphael decorates the “Stanza della Segnatura,” Julius II’s private library in the Vatican Palaces.
1518-20 ­ Raphael paints
The Transfiguration (Rome, Vatican Art Gallery) in competition with Sebastiano del Piombo, who is commissioned to paint The Raising of Lazarus (London, National Gallery).
Correggio frescoes the ceiling of the Camera di San Paolo in Parma, in "trompe lΓÇÖoeil" perspective.
1519 ­ On the death of Maximilian of Habsburg, Charles I of Spain ascends the imperial throne under the name of Charles V.
1527 ­ Rome is seized and sacked by the german mercenaries of Charles V, in conflict with Pope Clement VII.
1529 ­ The Peace of Cambrai establishes Charles V’s hegemony over the Italian peninsula. The following year, in Bologna, he is crowned Emperor and King of Italy.
1536-41 ­ Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoes the Last Judgment on the wall above the altar in the Sistine Chapel.
1545 ­ The Council of Trent opens; brought to a conclusion in 1563, it sets in motion the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
1588 ­ Defeat of the “Invincible Armada,” the fleet sent to invade England by Philip II of Spain.
1590-95 ­ Caravaggio paints the Adolescent Bacchus in the Uffizi.
