1564
Galileo Born in Pisa
A boy was born in the Tuscan university town of Pisa to a musician and lute theorist named Vincenzo Galilei. Named Galileo, he would grow up to drop objects from leaning towers, build telescopes, discover the moons of Jupiter, and stand trial before the Roman Inquisition. His father's experiments in musical acoustics may have instilled the conviction that nature's laws could be expressed mathematically.
Spanish Establish Cebu
Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his Augustinian chaplain Andres de Urdaneta landed on the Philippine island of Cebu and founded the first Spanish settlement in the archipelago. The priests began baptizing. Urdaneta, a veteran navigator, was already plotting a return route across the Pacific to Mexico. Urdaneta's discovery of the Pacific return route inaugurated the Manila Galleon trade operating for two and a half centuries.
Death of Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti died in his rented Roman house at almost eighty-nine, still chiseling on an unfinished Pieta that would go to his grave. His body was smuggled to Florence for a state funeral. Four generations of Italian sculptors had grown up measuring themselves against his shoulder. His final Rondanini Pieta, stripped of grandeur and reduced to ghostly merging figures, seemed to anticipate modern sculpture by four centuries.
Shakespeare Baptized at Stratford
The parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon recorded the baptism of Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere. Nothing about the infant suggested what he would become, and almost nothing is known about his childhood. He grew up in a glover's household on Henley Street. Nothing about the infant suggested what he would become, and almost nothing is known of his childhood beyond the glover's household on Henley Street.
Death of John Calvin
The austere reformer of Geneva died at fifty-four, worn out by asthma, migraines, and overwork. He asked to be buried in an unmarked grave, and his instructions were obeyed. Calvinism by then had jumped the city walls and was reshaping Scotland, the Netherlands, and bits of France and Hungary. The institutional structures he created survived his death and continued shaping Reformed Protestantism across Europe and the Americas.
Legazpi Sails for the Philippines
Under orders from Philip II, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi set out from Navidad on the Mexican Pacific coast with four ships and four hundred men to establish a permanent Spanish foothold in the Philippines. With him sailed the navigator Andres de Urdaneta, who would later find the crucial return route across the Pacific.
Plague Closes English Theaters
A particularly deadly outbreak of plague forced the closure of theaters and public gatherings across England. Troupes of players took to the roads, performing in provincial towns. The cycle of plague and closure would punctuate English theatrical life for the rest of the century, shaping Shakespeare's career in particular. The closures may have given Shakespeare leisure to compose Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1564?
Saeculum lists 7 curated events from 1564. The most significant is Galileo Born in Pisa: A boy was born in the Tuscan university town of Pisa to a musician and lute theorist named Vincenzo Galilei.
What era was 1564 part of?
1564 falls within the Renaissance (1501-1650). Reformation, conquest, and the world drawn whole.
Which regions saw notable events in 1564?
The curated events from 1564 span Europe and Southeast Asia.