18 May 1474 - Birth of Isabella d'Este.She was Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court. The poet Ariosto labeled her as the "liberal and magnanimous Isabella",while author Matteo Bandello described her as having been "supreme among women".Diplomat Niccolò da Correggio went even further by hailing her as "The First Lady of the world".
She served as the regent of Mantua during the absence of her husband, Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and the minority of her son, Federico, Duke of Mantua. In 1500 she met King Louis XII of France in Milan on a diplomatic mission to persuade him not to send his troops against Mantua.
She was a prolific letter-writer, and maintained a lifelong correspondence with her sister-in-law Elisabetta Gonzaga. Lucrezia Borgia was another sister-in-law; she later became the mistress of Isabella's husband.

17 May 1444-Birth of Sandro Botticelli, painter

Primavera (c. 1482): icon of the springtime renewal of the Florentine Renaissance, also at the summer palazzo of Pierfrancesco de' Medici, as a companion piece to the Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur. Left to right: Mercury, the Three Graces, Venus, Flora, Chloris, Zephyrus.

16 May 1412- Giovanni Maria Visconti,duke of Milan was stabbed to death at the door of a church

16 May 1527 – The Florentines drive out the Medici for a second time and Florence re-establishes itself as a republic.

15 May 1252-Torturing People for Confessions Authorized by Pope Innocent IV

15 May 1455-Crusade Against Turks Proclaimed by Pope Calixtus III

14 May 1493-Death of Nannina de' Medici,born Lucrezia de' Medici, she was the third daughter of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici and Lucrezia Tornabuoni. She was thus the elder sister of Lorenzo de' Medici. She married Bernardo Rucellai. Her father's name was Piero, so she is sometimes known as Lucrezia di Piero de' Medici.