Juana Inés de la Cruz (above), the Mexican philosopher, poet, nun and protofeminist, died of the plague today in 1695. Her writings arguing that women should have the right to education, and that they should be given positions of authority, made her a controversial figure in the church, although she also had powerful admirers. It is thought that her library of 4,000 books was confiscated by the church authorities, and she was required to do penance for what she had written. Her reputation has recently been revived by academics, after being neglected for centuries.
On this day in 1397, Geoffrey Chaucer gave a live reading of The Canterbury Tales to the court of King Richard II. It must have been a great novelty to hear a work of literature written in the language of the street, since the court spoke entirely in refined Norman French, or in Latin.
Born today in 1598 was Giovanni Battista Riccioli, the Italian Jesuit and astronomer. Famous for naming the ‘seas’ and craters of the moon, he gave them names that have endured, such as the Mare Tranquilitatis, the Sea of Tranquility, and the colossal crater Tycho. He named a group of craters after Copernican astronomers, including Galileo and Kepler, with whom he disgreed. But he placed them in the Oceanus Procelarum, the Ocean of Storms.
Proclus, the Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, died today in the year 485. He was a significant influence on medieval thinkers such as Pseudo-Dionysius and Boethius, and remained committed to the Greek pantheon of gods well into the Christian era. He has a crater on the moon named after him by Riccioli (see above).
Christopher Columbus successfully negotiated his contract with Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Castile today in 1492. The contract, known as the Capitulations of Santa Fe, set him up very handsomely for his voyage of discovery of the New World. He was to be Governor General of all the lands he discovered, and would get 10 per cent of the expedition’s profits. Plus he got a fancy title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
Image: Wikimedia Commons