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Galileo Galilei (15 Feb. 1564—8 Jan. 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who played a pivotal role in establishing modern science at a time when contradiction of religion was considered heresy. It was as an astronomer that he was most controversial. Galileo developed telescopes that confirmed the phases of Venus, and the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), as well as sunspots.<br/><br/> In 1610, while a majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric opinion that the Earth was the centre of the universe, Galileo came out in support of Copernicus' heliocentric view that the Sun was at the center of the solar system.<br/><br/> Galileo's opinions were met with outrage and bitter opposition, and he was denounced to the Roman Inquisition. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as 'false and contrary to [Christian] Scripture' and forced Galileo to renounce his scientific conclusions.<br/><br/> However, in 1632, Galileo published 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems', in which he again defended heliocentrism. He was tried by the Inquisition, found 'vehemently suspect of heresy', forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
For centuries Venice was Europe’s prime trading partner with the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire in particular. Venetian naval and commercial power was unrivalled in Europe until it lost a series of wars to the Ottoman armies in the 15th century. The city lost some 50,000 people to the Black Death in 1575-77, but remained a major manufacturing center and port well into the 18th century.
Giovanni Mocenigo (1409 – September 14, 1485), Pietro Mocenigo's brother, was doge of Venice from 1478 to 1485. He fought at sea against the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and on land against Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, from whom he recaptured Rovigo and the Polesine. He was interred in the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.
Foscari, of an ancient noble family, served the Republic of Venice in numerous official capacities—as ambassador, president of the Forty, member of the Council of Ten, inquisitor, Procuratore di San Marco, before he was elected in 1423. His task as doge was to lead Venice in a long and protracted series of wars against Milan, governed by the Visconti, who were attempting to dominate all of northern Italy.<br/><br/> Despite the justification of Venetian embroilment in the terraferma that was offered in Foscari's funeral oration, delivered by the humanist senator and historian Bernardo Giustiniani, and some encouraging notable victories, the war was extremely costly to Venice, whose real source of wealth and power was at sea, and to her ally Florence; they were eventually overcome by the forces of Milan under the leadership of Francesco Sforza. Sforza soon made peace with Florence, however, leaving Venice adrift.<br/><br/> In 1445, Foscari's only surviving son, Jacopo, was tried by the Council of Ten on charges of bribery and corruption and exiled from the city. Two further trials, in 1450 and 1456, led to Jacopo's imprisonment on Crete and his eventual death there.<br/><br/> News of Jacopo's death caused Foscari to withdraw from his government duties, and in October 1457 the Council of Ten forced him to resign. However, his death a week later provoked such public outcry that he was given a state funeral.
The Doge of Venice (derived from Latin dux, 'leader'), often mistranslated Duke (the Italian word for duke is 'Duca') was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city.<br/><br/> Contrary to popular belief the doge was not a duke in the modern sense, nor was a doge the equivalent of a hereditary duke. The doge was the senior-most elected official of Venice and Genoa; both cities were republics and elected doges. A doge was referred to variously by the titles 'My Lord the Doge' (Monsignor el Doxe), 'Most Serene Prince' (Serenissimo Principe), and 'His Serenity' (Sua Serenità).
Leonardo Loredan (or Loredano) (November 16, 1436 – June 21, 1521) was the doge of the Republic of Venice from 1501 until his death, in the course of the War of the League of Cambrai. Upon the death of Pope Alexander VI in 1503, Venice occupied several territories in the northern Papal States. When Julius II was elected as Alexander's eventual successor, the Venetians expected their seizure of papal territory to be tacitly accepted, as Julius had been nicknamed Il Veneziano for his pro-Venetian sympathies. But instead the new Pope excommunicated the Republic and united the Papal States in an alliance with France, the Holy Roman Empire and several other Christian states.<br/><br/> The Doge's problems did not end in Europe. In 1509, the Battle of Diu took place, in India, where the Portuguese fleet defeated an Ottoman and Mameluk fleet, which had been transferred from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea with Venetian help. The defeat marked the end of the profitable Spice trade, which was bought by Venetians from the Mameluks in Egypt and in turn monopolised its sale in Europe, reaping great revenues from it.<br/><br/> After losing to the league's forces at the Battle of Agnadello, Venice found her holdings in Italy shrinking exponentially. Soon Padua, Venice's most strategically vital Terra Firma holding, had fallen, and Venice herself was threatened. Loredan united the population, calling for sacrifice and total mobilisation. Padua was retaken, though Venice was still forced to accept a reluctant peace, following which it joined the Pope as only a junior ally in his new war against the French. When the Pope betrayed Venice once again, upon the verge of victory over France, Venice retaliated by aligning themselves with the French King Louis XII and were able to secure back all the territories they had lost. In addition, the Papacy was forced to repay man.outstanding debts to the Loredan family totaling approximately 500,000 Ducats.
The Doge of Venice (derived from Latin dux, 'leader'), often mistranslated Duke (the Italian word for duke is 'Duca') was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city.<br/><br/> Contrary to popular belief the doge was not a duke in the modern sense, nor was a doge the equivalent of a hereditary duke. The doge was the senior-most elected official of Venice and Genoa; both cities were republics and elected doges. A doge was referred to variously by the titles 'My Lord the Doge' (Monsignor el Doxe), 'Most Serene Prince' (Serenissimo Principe), and 'His Serenity' (Sua Serenità).
Galileo Galilei (15 Feb. 1564—8 Jan. 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who played a pivotal role in establishing modern science at a time when contradiction of religion was considered heresy. It was as an astronomer that he was most controversial. Galileo developed telescopes that confirmed the phases of Venus, and the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), as well as sunspots.<br/><br/> In 1610, while a majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric opinion that the Earth was the centre of the universe, Galileo came out in support of Copernicus' heliocentric view that the Sun was at the center of the solar system.<br/><br/> Galileo's opinions were met with outrage and bitter opposition, and he was denounced to the Roman Inquisition. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as 'false and contrary to [Christian] Scripture' and forced Galileo to renounce his scientific conclusions.<br/><br/> However, in 1632, Galileo published 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems', in which he again defended heliocentrism. He was tried by the Inquisition, found 'vehemently suspect of heresy', forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Moro's reign was marked by the beginning of a long war between Venice and the Turks. In 1463 Pope Pius II sent Moro a consecrated sword with the intention of convincing Venice to join the anti-Turk alliance. The reaction in Venice was initially hesitant as the Republic's main priority was their economic interests.<br/><br/> In April 1463, 10 years after the conquest of Constantinople, Turkish troops occupied the Venetian fortress of Argos in Greece. The Latin Patriarch Cardinal Johannes Bessarion traveled to Venice to call on the Republic to join the 'defense of the faith'; ie join the war against the Turks. That same year a coalition was formed between Venice, Hungary and the Albanian prince Skanderbeg with the blessing of the Pope to counter the threat of Sultan Mehmed II's aggressive policy of conquest. The coalition succeeded in temporarily halting Turkish expansion, however the new territorial limits acquired by the Turks in their conquests had by and large accepted.<br/><br/> In 1469 the Venetian fleet commander Niccolò Canal retook the town of Ainos in Thrace, but he was not able to defend the island of Negroponte (Euboea), a major granary of Venice, from Turkish attack. Euboea was conquered by the Sultan while inflicting enormous losses on the Venetian forces.
Gritti was born in Bardolino, near Verona. He spent much of his early life in Constantinople as a grain merchant, looking after Venetian interests. In the late 1490s he was using his commercial correspondence for sending encoded information to Venice regarding the movements of the Turkish navy. In 1499, he was imprisoned on charges of espionage, but escaped execution due to his friendship with the vizier, and was released several years later.<br/><br/> In the early sixteenth century Venice lost nearly all its territory on the Italian mainland, and Gritti played an important part in the events connected with this loss and the eventual return to the status quo ante. In 1509, after the Venetian defeat at the Battle of Agnadello, Gritti was appointed as proveditor to the Venetian army in Treviso; ordered by the Council of Ten to support revolts against the invaders, he successfully engineered the return of Padua to Venetian hands, and its subsequent defence against the Emperor. In 1510, following the death of Nicolo di Pitigliano, Gritti took command of Venice's army, but was forced to withdraw to Venice by French advances. He continued as proveditor through to the end of the League of Cambrai and the subsequent war of the Holy League. In 1512, he led the negotiations with Francis I that resulted in Venice leaving the League and allying with France.<br/><br/> Elected Doge in 1523, Gritti concluded a treaty with Charles V, ending Venice's active involvement in the Italian Wars. He attempted to maintain the neutrality of the Republic in the face of the continued struggle between Charles and Francis, urging both to turn their attention to the advances of the Ottoman Empire in Hungary. However, he could not prevent Suleiman I from attacking Corfu in 1537, drawing Venice into a war with the Ottomans. He died in 1538.
Shāh ‘Abbās the Great (or Shāh ‘Abbās I) (Persian: شاه عباس بزرگ) (January 27, 1571 – January 19, 1629) was Shah (king) of Iran, and generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son of Shah Mohammad.<br/><br/> Abbas came to the throne during a troubled time for Iran. Under his weak-willed father, the country was riven with discord between the different factions of the Qizilbash army, who killed Abbas' mother and elder brother. Meanwhile, Iran's enemies, the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, exploited this political chaos to seize territory for themselves.<br/><br/> In 1587, one of the Qizilbash leaders, Murshid Qoli Khan, overthrew Shah Mohammed in a coup and placed the 16-year-old Abbas on the throne. But Abbas was no puppet and soon seized power for himself. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash in the government and the military and reformed the army, enabling him to fight the Ottomans and Uzbeks and reconquer Iran's lost provinces. He also took back land from the Portuguese and the Mughals.
Shāh ‘Abbās the Great (or Shāh ‘Abbās I) (Persian: شاه عباس بزرگ) (January 27, 1571 – January 19, 1629) was Shah (king) of Iran, and generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son of Shah Mohammad.<br/><br/> Abbas came to the throne during a troubled time for Iran. Under his weak-willed father, the country was riven with discord between the different factions of the Qizilbash army, who killed Abbas' mother and elder brother. Meanwhile, Iran's enemies, the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, exploited this political chaos to seize territory for themselves.<br/><br/> In 1587, one of the Qizilbash leaders, Murshid Qoli Khan, overthrew Shah Mohammed in a coup and placed the 16-year-old Abbas on the throne. But Abbas was no puppet and soon seized power for himself. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash in the government and the military and reformed the army, enabling him to fight the Ottomans and Uzbeks and reconquer Iran's lost provinces. He also took back land from the Portuguese and the Mughals.
Shāh ‘Abbās the Great (or Shāh ‘Abbās I) (Persian: شاه عباس بزرگ) (January 27, 1571 – January 19, 1629) was Shah (king) of Iran, and generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son of Shah Mohammad.<br/><br/> Abbas came to the throne during a troubled time for Iran. Under his weak-willed father, the country was riven with discord between the different factions of the Qizilbash army, who killed Abbas' mother and elder brother. Meanwhile, Iran's enemies, the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, exploited this political chaos to seize territory for themselves.<br/><br/> In 1587, one of the Qizilbash leaders, Murshid Qoli Khan, overthrew Shah Mohammed in a coup and placed the 16-year-old Abbas on the throne. But Abbas was no puppet and soon seized power for himself. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash in the government and the military and reformed the army, enabling him to fight the Ottomans and Uzbeks and reconquer Iran's lost provinces. He also took back land from the Portuguese and the Mughals.