Precious Bodily Fluids

Precious Bodily Fluids - Timeline

Nigel Bruce

• 3 min read
Precious Bodily Fluids - Timeline

A timeline for Shakespeare's Worst Italian Plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear...

  • 1516 Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando) published in Ferrara
  • 1545 Beatriz Bernal's Cristalián de España published anonymously in Valladolid
  • 1553 Death of Rabelais
  • 1554 Matteo Bandello’s novella Giulietta e Romeo published in Lucca
  • 1555 Peace of Augsburg protected Lutheran rights in Germany
  • 1563 Death of Beatriz Bernal
    Plague outbreak in London
  • 1565 Cinthio's novella Un Capitano Moro (basis for Shakespeare's Othello) published in Mondovi
  • 1567 Mary Queen of Scot's (second) husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, is murdered in Edinburgh
  • 1571 Cervantes fights in Battle of Lepanto
  • 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (below) spread from Paris to other cities 
François Dubois: "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" (circa 1572-1584), Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne
  • 1575-78 Plague affects all of Italy
  • 1578 "Duel of the Mignons" between the factions of King Henri III and Henri, Duke of Guise
  • 1580 Montaigne's first essays were published in Bordeaux
    Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata published in Ferrara; Montaigne visits him there
  • 1581 Prince Vincenzo of Mantua marries the Princess of Parma, Margarita Farnese (annulled in 1583)
  • 1582: Scotsman James Crichton is murdered in Mantua
  • 1584 Cervantes marries Catalina de Salazar y Palacios
    Prince Vincenzo marries Eleonora di Francesco de' Medici, from Florence
  • 1586 Plague arrives in Montaigne's area
  • 1587 Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire
  • 1588 Pope Sixtus V bans women from speaking and singing in church; castrati begin to fill the gap
    Spanish Armada failure (below)
José Gartner: "Destruction of the Invincible Armada" (1892), Museo del Prado/Museo de Málaga
  • 1588 Murder of the Duc de Guise in Blois by the guardsmen of King Henri III
  • 1589 Murder of King Henri III
  • 1590 Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa arranges for the murder of his wife Donna Maria d’Avalos and her lover, the Duke of Andria, in Naples
    Monteverdi moves to Mantua
  • 1592 Death of Montaigne at his family estate
  • 1595 The most likely year Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet first performed in London - but set in Verona
    Death of Torquato Tasso in Rome
  • 1592 Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy: or Hieronimo is Mad Again
  • 1597 Death of Alfonso II d'Este - the end of the Ferrara dynasty
  • 1598 Edict of Nantes granting religious freedom in France
  • 1598-1602 Worst plague years in Spain
  • 1599 Monteverdi marries Claudia Cattaneo
  • 1601 Shakespeare's Hamlet performed in London but set in Denmark
  • 1603 Death of Queen Elizabeth of England (below - where it's imminent)
Unknown English painter: "Allegorical Portrait of Elizabeth I" (circa 1610 but probably painted earlier), Corsham Court, Wiltshire
  • 1603-4 Worst plague years in London
  • 1604 Shakespeare's Othello performed in London but set in Venice and Cyprus
  • 1605 Cervantes' Don Quixote published in Madrid
  • 1606 Shakespeare's King Lear performed in London
  • 1607/8/10 Virginia colony/Quebec colony/Santa Fe colony
  • 1607 Monteverdi's L'Orfee performed in Mantua; his wife dies later in the year
  • 1613 Death of Carlo Gesualdo at his castle in Avellino
  • 1614 Fake Don Quixote sequel by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda of Tordesillas (pseudonym for an unknown writer) published in Tarragona
  • 1615 Don Quixote sequel published in Madrid
  • 1616 Deaths of Shakespeare in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Cervantes in Madrid
  • 1628-31 Great plague of France and Milan
  • 1643 Monteverdi dies in Venice
  • 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart publishes The Works of Rabelais (Books I and II) in London