1500 – 1510s

Events in the 1500s 11

• 651 – 1501 Islamic Persia — caliphates, Seljuks and Mongols Centuries of Islamic rule and a Persian cultural flowering After the conquest, Persia was ruled successively by the Arab caliphates, Persian and Turkic dynasties, the Seljuk Turks, and — devastatingly — the Mongols under Genghis Khan and Hulagu in the 13th century. Yet this era produced a brilliant Persian cultural renaissance: the poetry of Ferdowsi, Rumi, Hafez and Omar Khayyam, and advances in science and mathematics.
• 1446 – 1506 Alexander Agricola Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Alexander Agricola was a highly regarded composer who served several European courts. His complex, ornamented style distinguished him from his contemporaries.
• 1457 – 1505 Jacob Obrecht Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Jacob Obrecht was a leading composer of the generation after Ockeghem whose masses and motets demonstrate great rhythmic vitality and contrapuntal skill.
• 1500 – 1553 Cristóbal de Morales Spanish Renaissance composer Cristóbal de Morales was the most important Spanish composer of the Renaissance whose masses and motets were performed throughout Europe and the Americas.
• 1500 – 1561 Luis Milán Spanish Renaissance composer Luis Milán was a Spanish nobleman and vihuela player whose El maestro was the first published collection of solo vihuela music and one of the earliest printed collections of lute music.
• 1500 – 1555 Luys de Narváez Spanish Renaissance lutenist Luys de Narváez was a Spanish vihuela player and composer whose Los seys libros del Delphín was one of the finest collections of Renaissance lute music.
• 1501 – 1736 Safavid Empire Iran reunified; Shia Islam made the state religion The Safavid dynasty, founded by Shah Ismail I in 1501, reunified Iran as an independent power after centuries of fragmentation and established Twelver Shia Islam as the state religion — a defining feature of Iranian identity to this day. The empire reached its height under Shah Abbas I and rivalled the Ottomans.
• 1502 – 1520 Moctezuma II -- the emperor at the apex Moctezuma II (c.1466-1520), ninth tlatoani of Tenochtitlan, rules at the absolute apex of Aztec power -- presiding over the most extensive empire in Mesoamerican history, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, and the most elaborate court in the New World. He is simultaneously the empire's most powerful and most unlucky ruler: he inherits a perfect system and watches it destroyed. His reign sees the final territorial expansion of the empire, the maximum development of court ceremonial (he eats alone, behind a screen, served from golden vessels; no one may look at him directly; visitors approach barefoot), and the arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1519. His response to Cortés -- initially hospitality, then captivity, then his unclear death -- remains the most debated series of decisions in New World history.
• 1505 – 1572 Christopher Tye English Renaissance composer Christopher Tye was an English composer and music teacher at Ely Cathedral whose in nomines and sacred works helped define the English Renaissance polyphonic tradition.
• 1506 – 1534 Elizabeth Barton The Holy Maid of Kent English Catholic nun and prophetess known as the Holy Maid of Kent. A servant girl from Aldington in Kent, she began experiencing visions and trances during a severe illness in 1525 and was declared miraculously cured at a local chapel. Archbishop Warham found her orthodox and she entered a Benedictine convent in Canterbury, where she became a celebrity visited by pilgrims from across England. She met Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII and corresponded with Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. When she began prophesying that Henry would die if he divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, she became a threat to the Crown. She was publicly denounced, attainted by Parliament and hanged at Tyburn in 1534 at the age of 28 — the first woman whose head was displayed on London Bridge.
• 1507 – 1568 Jacques Arcadelt Franco-Flemish madrigal composer Jacques Arcadelt was one of the pioneers of the Italian madrigal whose early collections were enormously popular and helped establish the genre as the dominant secular form.