1540 – 1550s

Events in the 1540s 13

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1541 – 1614 El Greco Mannerism · Greece / Spain El Greco (October 1, 1541 – April 7, 1614) was a Greek painter who settled in Toledo, Spain, and developed a distinctive Mannerist style with elongated figures and dramatic colour. He was rediscovered by modernists in the 20th century.
• 1543 Copernicus — heliocentric model De revolutionibus: the Earth moves around the Sun In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), proposing that the Earth and planets orbit the Sun rather than the Earth being the centre of the universe. Copernicus had developed the theory over decades but held back publication until the year of his death. The book launched the Copernican Revolution — the most profound transformation in humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos.
• 1543 Europeans arrive — guns and Christianity Portuguese traders reach Tanegashima In 1543 shipwrecked Portuguese traders landed on Tanegashima, introducing the matchlock firearm, which rapidly transformed Japanese warfare. Missionaries soon followed — Francis Xavier arrived in 1549 — bringing Christianity and a brief era of European trade and influence.
• 1543 – 1601 Orazio Vecchi Italian Renaissance composer Orazio Vecchi was an Italian composer best known for his L'Amfiparnaso, a comic madrigal cycle that anticipated opera. He was also a prolific composer of sacred music.
• 1543 – 1598 Philippe de Monte Franco-Flemish madrigal composer Philippe de Monte was one of the most prolific composers of madrigals and motets in the late Renaissance, serving as imperial Kapellmeister in Vienna for many decades.
• 1543 Vesalius — De Humani Corporis Fabrica Modern human anatomy based on dissection In 1543, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), the most detailed and accurate anatomical atlas ever produced. Based on his own dissections at the University of Padua, it corrected over 200 errors in Galen's ancient texts, which had been accepted for 1,400 years without question. Its 200+ woodcut illustrations, possibly produced in Titian's studio, set a new standard for scientific illustration. Published the same year as Copernicus's heliocentric theory, it marked the birth of modern medicine.
• 1544 – 1609 Vincenzo Galilei Italian Renaissance composer and theorist Vincenzo Galilei was a lutenist, composer and music theorist who was father of Galileo Galilei. His advocacy for monody and text expression contributed to the birth of opera.
• 1547 – 1616 Miguel de Cervantes Spanish novelist Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel and a cornerstone of Western literature.
• 1549 – 1609 Eustache Du Caurroy French Renaissance composer Eustache Du Caurroy was surintendant de la musique to Henry IV of France whose sacred and secular compositions were highly regarded at the French court.