Holy Roman Empire Minor States

State · 1260–1806 CE · at its largest around 1326 CE

Grouping of the many small principalities, imperial cities, bishoprics and lordships within the Holy Roman Empire that are too small to map individually.

On its lands while it lasted

Dante Alighieri (1265 CE – 1321 CE): Florentine poet whose Divine Comedy, written in the Tuscan vernacular, is a masterpiece of world literature and helped establish the Italian language.
Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel frescoes (1305 CE): Giotto covered the walls of a Padua chapel with the lives of the Virgin and Christ under a starry blue vault. His solid, feeling figures broke with Byzantine stiffness and began the road to the Renaissance.
Hanseatic League (1356 CE): Confederation of merchant guilds and market towns that dominated Baltic and North Sea trade; its first general diet met in Lübeck in 1356.
Hanseatic trade route (1356–1669 CE): The Hanseatic League of north German merchant towns, led by Lübeck, dominated Baltic and North Sea trade from London and Bruges to Novgorod, exchanging furs, wax, grain, fish and timber for cloth and salt.
Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400 CE – 1468 CE): German goldsmith from Mainz who introduced printing with movable metal type to Europe.
Dome of Florence Cathedral (1436 CE): Brunelleschi's dome, completed in 1436, was the largest built since antiquity and a landmark of Renaissance architecture.
Printing press (c. 1440 CE): Gutenberg's press with movable metal type made mass production of books possible, transforming the spread of knowledge in Europe.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 CE – 1519 CE): Italian Renaissance polymath born in Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, whose notebooks record studies in anatomy, engineering and flight.
Gutenberg Bible (1455 CE): The first major book printed in Europe with movable metal type, completed by Johannes Gutenberg’s workshop in Mainz by 1455. About 180 copies were printed, and fewer than 50 survive.
Michelangelo (1475 CE – 1564 CE): Florentine sculptor, painter and architect of the High Renaissance. He carved the Pietà and David, painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Last Judgement, and designed the dome of St Peter's.
The Last Supper (1495–1498 CE): Leonardo da Vinci's mural in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, depicting Jesus announcing that one of the apostles will betray him.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500 CE – 1558 CE): Habsburg ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, much of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. He opposed the Reformation and abdicated his titles in Brussels in 1555–1556.
Mona Lisa (c. 1503 CE): Leonardo da Vinci began this portrait of Lisa Gherardini in Florence around 1503 and kept working on it for years. It hangs in the Louvre and is among the most famous paintings in the world.
Ninety-five Theses (1517 CE): In 1517 Martin Luther circulated his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg. The dispute that followed launched the Protestant Reformation.
Galileo Galilei (1564 CE – 1642 CE): Italian astronomer and physicist born in Pisa who pioneered experimental science and telescopic astronomy. Condemned by the Inquisition in 1633, he spent his last years under house arrest near Florence.