Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui

Pachakutiq Inka Yupanki

Peru

c. 1418 – c. 1471 (53 years old)

Ninth Sapa Inca whose military genius transformed the Kingdom of Cusco into Tawantinsuyu (Inca Empire) and who commissioned Machu Picchu.

Cusco, Peru

36 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

48

Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

Ibn Taghribirdi

ابن تغري بردي

Egypt

1410 – 1470 (60 years old)

Distinguished Egyptian historian of Mamluk aristocratic descent who studied under Al-Maqrizi and authored 'Al-Nujum al-Zahirah', the definitive multi-volume chronicle of Egypt from the Arab conquest to 1468.

Cairo, Egypt

48 Full Record →

31

Prophets & Divine Messengers

Zara Yaqob (Emperor)

ዘርአ ያዕቆብ

Ethiopia

1399 – 1468 (69 years old)

Fifteenth-century Emperor of Ethiopia from the Solomonic Dynasty whose thirty-four-year reign represented the golden age of medieval Ethiopian power, literature, and church organization.

Lake Tana, Ethiopia

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5

Philip the Good

Philippe le Bon / Filips de Goede

France

1396 – 1467 (70 years old)

Transformative Duke of Burgundy whose reign (1419–1467) unified Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut, Namur, and Holland into the Burgundian Netherlands, ushering in the golden age of Flemish Renaissance art.

Dijon, France

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Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (Donatello)

41

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Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (Donatello)

Donatello

Italy

c. 1386 – 13 December 1466 (~80 years old)

Supreme master sculptor of the Florentine Early Renaissance who created the bronze David—the first freestanding nude bronze statue since classical antiquity—and pioneered schiacciato low relief.

Florence, Italy

41 Full Record →

50

Imam al-Jazuli

محمد بن سليمان الجزولي

Morocco

c. 1404 – 1465 (61 years old)

Sanhaja Berber Sufi master who authored 'Dala'il al-Khayrat', the most celebrated prayer book in Islamic history, and mobilized national resistance against Portuguese coastal incursions in Morocco.

Marrakech, Morocco

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Politics

8

Abu Muhammad Abd al-Haqq II

عبد الحق الثاني المريني

Morocco

1419 – 1465 (46 years old)

The final Marinid Sultan (1420–1465), whose massacre of his Wattasid viziers and appointment of a Jewish grand vizier provoked the explosive 1465 Fez uprising, ending 250 years of Marinid dynastic rule.

Fez, Morocco

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16

Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli

محمد بن سليمان الجزولي

Morocco

1404 – 1465 (61 years old)

Revered 15th-century Amazigh Sufi reformer from the Sous, author of Dala'il al-Khayrat, whose spiritual brotherhood catalyzed the rise of the Saadian dynasty against Portuguese expansion.

Marrakesh, Morocco

16 Full Record →

29

Muhammad al-Jazuli

محمد بن سليمان الجزولي

Morocco

c. 1404 – 1465 (61 years old)

Iconic Moroccan Sufi master and spiritual leader whose prayer manual 'Dala'il al-Khayrat' became the most widely recited devotional book after the Qur'an across the Islamic world.

Marrakech, Morocco

29 Full Record →

Philosophy & Thought

35

Nicolas of Cusa

Nicolaus Cusanus

Germany

1401 – 1464 (63 years old)

German Renaissance polymath and cardinal who developed the concept of 'learned ignorance' (docta ignorantia) and the 'coincidence of opposites' (coincidentia oppositorum), anticipating an infinite universe without a center.

Rome, Italy

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Rogier van der Weyden

Belgium

c. 1399 – 1464 (65 years old)

Early Netherlandish master painter whose heart-rending 'Descent from the Cross' captured intense human emotion, tears, and spiritual pathos with unparalleled precision.

Brussels, Belgium

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Literature & Poetry

39

François Villon

France

1431 – c. 1463 (31 years old)

Greatest French lyric poet of the late Middle Ages, roguish outlaw, and author of Le Testament and the haunting Ballade des Pendus.

Paris, France

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4

Goharshad Begum

گوهرشاد بیگم

Uzbekistan

c. 1378 – 19 July 1457 (79 years old)

Visionary Timurid Empress, wife of Shah Rukh, whose architectural patronage built the Goharshad Mosque and sparked the 15th-century Timurid Renaissance.

Herat, Afghanistan

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Business

2

Jacques Coeur

Jacques Cœur

France

c. 1395 – 1456 (61 years old)

Audacious merchant prince and royal financier whose Mediterranean trading fleet and financial genius as Argentier to King Charles VII funded the French royal army that drove English forces from Normandy and Gascony.

Chios, Greece

2 Full Record →

Monarchs, Kings & Royalty

3,185

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Fra Angelico

Guido di Pietro / Beato Angelico

Italy

1 – 1455 (60 years old)

Florentine Early Renaissance friar celebrated for devout, luminous frescoes and altarpieces of unearthly purity and tranquility.

Rome, Italy

3,185 Full Record →

30

Constantine XI Palaiologos

Κωνσταντῖνος ΙΑ΄ Δραγάσης Παλαιολόγος

Turkey

1405 – 1453 (48 years old)

Last Emperor of the Byzantine Empire who died fighting heroically on the walls of Constantinople during the final Ottoman assault in 1453.

Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey

30 Full Record →

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