Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1429 – 1519)

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was a very talented Italian, thought of as the ‘perfect Renaissance man’ – active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. He painted ‘The Last Supper’, ‘The Vitruvian Man’ and the ‘Mona Lisa’, arguably the world’s most famous painting.

As an inventor, he designed workable forerunners of a diving suit, a robot, and a tank – centuries before they became a reality. As a scientist, he designed the first self-propelled machine in history and described the processes governing friction.

Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492)

Lorenzo de’ Medici was perhaps the most famous member of the Medici family, one of the wealthiest European families in history and the de facto rulers of Florence. During the Renaissance, artists were completely reliant on patrons. Although he rarely commissioned work himself, Lorenzo de’ Medici helped connect artists with other patrons.

Artists who enjoyed Lorenzo’s patronage included Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Along with being a statesman and major patron of the arts, he also encouraged the development of Renaissance humanism through his inner circle of scholars and philosophers.

Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Michelangelo was a sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer whose endeavours embodied the spirit of the Renaissance. His greatest works include St Peter’s Basilica, his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and the statue of David.

ichelangelo’s artistic legacy is one that lives on as one of the three titans of the Florentine renaissance, alongside da Vinci and Raphael. His works have since exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of art.

Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Nicholaus Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, economist, diplomat and classics scholar. His most important teaching – that the earth revolved around the sun – placed him in direct opposition to the established teachings of the church. 

His view that the sun was the centre of the universe of the solar system and universe was the most prominent scientific achievement of the Renaissance age. Without him, much of Galileo’s later work would not have been possible. 

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael) (1483-1520)

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino was considered up until the late C19th to be the greatest artist who ever lived – more so than even da Vinci and Michelangelo.
He was known for his skill at depicting human emotions and clarity of form in his artworks.

His best known work is The School of Athens in the Stanza della segnatura (‘Room of the Signatura’) – also known as the Raphael Rooms – in the Vatican palace.

Painted between 1509 and 1511, the Raphael Rooms depicted the harmony and wisdom which Renaissance humanists perceived between Christian teaching and Greek philosophy.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

Galileo Galilei was perhaps the most influential Renaissance scientist who paved the scientific revolution that later flourished in northern Europe. Often called the ‘father of observational astronomy’, Galilei pioneered the telescope and advocated the heliocentric model of our solar system. He made key discoveries in both pure fundamental science as well as practical applied science, and in doing so revolutionised our understanding of the world.

Catherine de Medici (1529 - 1589)

Catherine married King Henry II of France and became Queen of France in 1547. She was the mother of three kings and two queens for almost two decades the most powerful woman in Europe. Later she served as regent for her son King Charles IX and played a major role in the reign of her third son Henry III.

Despite being labelled by some as the ‘black queen’ due to the major role she played in politics and her part in the ‘Wars of Religion’, Catherine supported the arts, brought ballet to the French court and helped keep the French state together at a time of immense religious and political crisis.

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532 - 1625)

Sofonisba was a late Renaissance painter best known for her portraiture. She was one of the first known female artists and one of the first women artists to establish an international reputation. In 1566 an art commentator described her work thus:

She has worked with deeper study and greater grace than any woman of our times at problems of design, for not only has she learned to draw, paint, and copy from nature, and reproduce most skilfully works by other artists, but she has on her own painted some most rare and beautiful paintings.

Lucrezia Borgia  (1480 - 1519) 

Often called a poisoner, adulteress and villain, the truth about this notorious duchess has been debated by historians for centuries. Lucrezia grew up in Rome, surrounded by intellectuals and members of the court. She was fluent in Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, Latin and Greek by the time she was a teenager.

Much of Lucrezia Borgia’s life was centred on marriage. Her father (who later became Pope Alexander VI) did not shy away from repeatedly offering her hand to prominent noblemen whose political alliance he desperately needed. Thus, Lucrezia was for her father a simple commodity, a valuable trading object that was his shortcut to political stability. In the end, history agrees that Lucrezia Borgia was a woman of her times - neither good nor bad, but rather somewhere in between. She was a learned woman, finding means to thrive in a ruthless and dangerous world.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine political philosopher, musician, poet, playwright and statesman, whose work Il Principe (‘The Prince’) has earned him an image as an immoral cynic. In his best-known book, Machiavelli outlined traits that would bolster power and influence in an effective leader. A new prince had to be shrewd, brutal, calculating and – when necessary – utterly immoral. In other words, “the ends justify the means.”

Today we still use the term ‘Machiavellian’ to describe a person who deceives and manipulates others for gain and judges the importance of actions by how well they achieve the desired result.