Leon battista ??: Did you mean...?

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), oil on canvas portrait by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, depicting St. Catherine of Siena wearing a crown of thorns, c. 1746. The Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

A 17th-century portrait by Giovanni Battista Langetti of Anaxagoras (l. c. 500-c. 428 BCE), the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who claimed the First Cause of existence was Mind (nous). (Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA)

As described by the Roman historian Livy (1st century BC), the youthful Massiva was the nephew of a prince of Numidia in present-day Algeria who had supported Scipio Africanus (a Roman general so known because of his conquests in North Africa...

Queen Zenobia before Emperor Aurelianus. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). Oil on canvas. Prado Museum.

Aztec Sun Stone, illustration in Antonio León y Gama's Historical and Chronological Description of the Two Stones Which Were Found in 1790 During the Repaving of the Main Plaza in Mexico, 1792. Antonio León y Gama's (1735-1802) work, published...

The Iberian conquistadors ("conquerors") were the first military men to explore, attack, and conquer territories in the Americas and Asia that would then become a part of the Spanish or Portuguese Empire. Indigenous peoples could not match...

The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto (c. 1500-1542) landed on the west coast of Florida on 30 May 1539, hoping to find wealthy kingdoms to conquer and plunder. His crew journeyed for over four years in southeastern North America, savaging...

The Description of Africa is the first comprehensive book about Africa, written by Leo Africanus, an African scholar trained in the Islamic intellectual tradition, in 1526, during the Italian Renaissance. A skillful mixture of anthropology...

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Cremona who achieved considerable fame during her lifetime as the first widely-known female artist. She was invited by the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain (reign...

Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, Italy, is an opulent, sprawling garden-villa covering some 120 hectares (296 acres). It was built by Emperor Hadrian (76-138 CE) between 125-134 CE for use as his country estate, although the land may have originally...