F-YEAH HISTORY

Hand cannon being fired from a stand, from the "Bellifortis", manuscript, by Konrad Kyeser, c. 1405

Shield of Jacob of Luxemburg as knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, c. 1481, now at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. The Shield was painted by Pierre Coustain. Pierre Coustain was a painter and sculptor at the Court of Philip the Good. His name occurs in the records of the brotherhood of St. Luke at Bruges in the year 1450 as Painter Royal.

Saint Dominic presiding over an auto-da-fé, by Pedro Berruguete, c. 1495 An auto-da-fé (also auto da fé and auto de fe) was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed. Both auto de fe in medieval Spanish and auto da fé in Portuguese mean "act of faith".

The most extreme punishment imposed on those convicted was execution by burning. As the execution was more memorable than the penance which preceded it, in popular use the term auto-da-fé came to mean the punishment rather than the penance.

Young woman in a conical hennin with black velvet lappets or brim and a sheer veil, from the Allegory of True Love, by Hans Memling, 1485–90

Israhel van Meckenem and his wife, the first self-portrait in a print. Engraving, c. 1480s-90s Israhel van Meckenem (c.1445 – 10 November 1503), also known as Israhel van Meckenem the Younger, was a German printmaker and goldsmith, perhaps of a Dutch family origin.

He was the most prolific engraver of the fifteenth century and an important figure in the early history of old master prints. He was active from 1465 until his death.

ON THIS DAY: 1423 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant – the French army is defeated by the English at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.

Pedro de Arbués Pedro de Arbués, C.R.S.A. (c. 1441 – September 17, 1485), was an official of the Spanish Inquisition who was assassinated in the La Seo Cathedral of Zaragoza in 1485 in an alleged plot by conversos and Jews. He was very quickly venerated as a saint by popular acclaim, and his death greatly assisted the Inquisition and its Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada, in their campaign against heresy and crypto-Judaism.

Arbués was canonized in 1867.

Dardanelles Gun, 15th Century bronze muzzle-loading cannon of type used by Turks in siege of Constantinople, 1453

Contemporary illumination (Rous Roll) of Richard III, his queen Anne Neville whom he married at York in 1472, and their son Edward the Prince of Wales

Gothic helmets, illustration by Viollet Le-Duc

Maximilian Gothic plate armour, 15th Century

French troops and artillery entering Naples in 1495 The First Italian War, sometimes referred to as the Italian War of 1494 or Charles VIII's Italian War, was the opening phase of the Italian Wars. The war pitted Charles VIII of France, who had initial Milanese aid, against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and an alliance of Italian powers led by Pope Alexander VI.