1490 – 1500s

Events in the 1490s 12

• 1420 – 1497 Johannes Tinctoris Franco-Flemish composer and theorist Johannes Tinctoris was a composer and theorist whose twelve treatises on music theory were the most comprehensive of the 15th century. He served at the court of Naples.
• 1430 – 1497 Johannes Ockeghem Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Johannes Ockeghem was one of the most influential composers of the 15th century. His masses and motets show extraordinary command of counterpoint and earned him great renown.
• 1440 – 1492 Antoine Busnois Franco-Flemish composer Antoine Busnois was a significant composer and poet of the Burgundian court whose chansons and masses were widely admired across Europe.
• 1490 – 1562 Adrian Willaert Franco-Flemish composer Adrian Willaert founded the Venetian school of composition as maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica. His innovations in chromatic harmony and double-choir writing were highly influential.
• 1490 – 1562 Claudin de Sermisy French Renaissance composer Claudin de Sermisy was one of the most prominent composers at the French royal court whose chansons helped define the Parisian chanson style of the early 16th century.
• 1490 – 1545 John Taverner English Renaissance composer John Taverner was the greatest English composer of sacred polyphony in the early Tudor period. His masses and motets represent a high point of English Renaissance church music.
• 1490 – 1552 Philippe Verdelot Franco-Flemish madrigal composer Philippe Verdelot was one of the earliest composers of the Italian madrigal. Active in Florence and Venice, his works helped define the new genre in its formative years.
• 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas A new world enters European scientific knowledge On 12 October 1492, Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, opening sustained contact between Europe and the Americas. Beyond its enormous historical consequences, the discovery revolutionised geography, biology, botany, zoology, and medicine — introducing Europe to hundreds of unknown species, new foods, and entirely different ecosystems. It also demonstrated that the Earth was larger than ancient geographers had believed and accelerated the development of accurate global cartography.
• 1494 – 1553 Francois Rabelais French writer and satirist Rabelais used humor and satire in Gargantua and Pantagruel to critique society and human nature.
• 1495 – 1545 Costanzo Festa Italian Renaissance composer Costanzo Festa was an Italian composer active at the papal chapel who wrote some of the earliest Italian madrigals alongside sacred works of considerable quality.
• 1495 – 1560 Nicolas Gombert Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Nicolas Gombert was a pupil of Josquin who developed a dense, imitative polyphonic style that dominated European sacred music in the mid-16th century.
• 1497 – 1543 Hans Holbein the Younger Northern Renaissance · Germany Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497 – 1543) was a German painter who became court painter to Henry VIII of England. His precise, psychologically penetrating portraits are the definitive images of the Tudor court.