1620 – 1630s

Events in the 1620s 10

• 1540 – 1623 William Byrd English Renaissance composer The greatest English composer of the Renaissance, equally skilled in sacred and secular music, keyboard works and madrigals.
• 1562 – 1621 Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Dutch Renaissance composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was the greatest Dutch composer of the late Renaissance whose keyboard fantasias and variations bridged Renaissance and Baroque styles and deeply influenced German organ music.
• 1563 – 1626 John Dowland English lutenist and composer John Dowland was the greatest lutenist-composer of the Renaissance whose melancholic ayres and lute pieces were famous throughout Europe. His Flow my Tears became an international sensation.
• 1571 – 1621 Michael Praetorius German Renaissance composer and theorist Michael Praetorius was a prolific German composer and music theorist whose encyclopedic Syntagma Musicum documented Renaissance musical practice. His sacred works filled many volumes.
• 1576 – 1623 Thomas Weelkes English madrigal composer Thomas Weelkes was one of England's greatest madrigalists whose bold harmonies and expressive text-setting produced some of the finest English madrigals of the late Renaissance.
• 1583 – 1625 Orlando Gibbons English Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons was the foremost English composer of his generation whose anthems, fantasias and keyboard music represent the pinnacle of late English Renaissance polyphony.
• 1587 – 1629 Shah Abbas the Great The Safavid empire at its zenith; Isfahan rebuilt Shah Abbas I brought the Safavid Empire to its peak, reforming the army, driving back the Ottomans and Uzbeks, and making his capital Isfahan one of the most beautiful cities in the world — "Isfahan, half the world" — with its great square, mosques and bridges.
• 1622 – 1673 Moliere French playwright Moliere wrote satirical comedies that exposed hypocrisy in French society and shaped modern theatre.
• 1628 Harvey — blood circulation De Motu Cordis: the heart pumps blood around the body In 1628, William Harvey published Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), demonstrating through meticulous experiment that blood circulates continuously around the body driven by the pumping heart. He overturned Galen's 1,400-year-old theory that blood was produced in the liver and consumed by organs. Harvey's work marked the beginning of modern physiology and the use of quantitative experiment in medicine.
• 1628 – 1658 Shah Jahan The emperor who built the Taj Mahal Shah Jahan presided over the golden age of Mughal architecture. In memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal he built the Taj Mahal at Agra — the supreme masterpiece of Indo-Islamic art — along with the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid. He was deposed and imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb.