Where people of the medieval and Renaissance world grew up and lived

Albrecht Dürer1509–1528

📍 Albrecht-Dürer-Straße 39, 90403 Nuremberg, Germany

I was the son of a goldsmith in Nuremberg, one of eighteen children, and at thirteen I drew my own face from a mirror in silverpoint — my first self-portrait. I trained in my father's…

Alfred the Great871–899

📍 Winchester, Hampshire, UK

I was born at Wantage, the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, and no one expected me to be king. As a child I was taken twice to Rome, and I fell in love with books before I could…

Charlemagne742–814

📍 Palatine Chapel (Palace of Aachen), Klosterplatz 2, 52062 Aachen, Germany

I chose Aachen because of its hot springs — the Romans had known their virtue, and I found them invaluable for my aging body after decades of campaigning. But Aachen became far more than a…

Christopher Columbus1455–1470

📍 Casa di Cristoforo Colombo, Vico Dritto di Ponticello, 16121 Genoa, Italy

Between the ages of about four and nineteen I lived with my family in a narrow house just outside the Porta Soprana, the twin-towered medieval gate of Genoa. On the ground floor was the…

Dante Alighieri1265–1302

📍 Casa di Dante, Via Santa Margherita 1, 50122 Florence, Italy

I was born in 1265 in the crowded heart of medieval Florence, in the Alighieri houses near the Torre della Castagna and the little church of San Martino del Vescovo, a few streets from the…

Ferdinand Magellan1480–1492

📍 Sabrosa, Vila Real, Portugal

I was born around 1480 in northern Portugal, into a family of minor nobility, the Magalhães. Tradition and many historians place my birth in Sabrosa, a granite village in the hills of…

Genghis Khan1162–1227

📍 Avarga, Delgerkhaan, Mongolia

I was born beside the Onon River in the Khentii Mountains, the son of a chieftain who was poisoned before I was old enough to fight for him. My father's tribe abandoned us. My mother kept…

Guru Nanak1469–1539

📍 Gurdwara Janam Asthan, GT Road, Nankana Sahib, Punjab 39100, Pakistan

I was born Nanak on the 15th of April 1469 in Nankana Sahib in the Punjab, now Pakistan. I grew up in a Hindu family in a region where Hinduism and Islam coexisted and sometimes conflicted…

Hildegard von Bingen1098–1179

📍 Bermersheim vor der Höhe, 55234 Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

I was born around 1098 in Bermersheim in the Rhineland, the tenth child of a noble family who offered me to the church as a tithe. I was given as a companion to the anchoress Jutta von…

Ignatius of Loyola1491–1556

📍 Santuario de Loyola, Jauregi Kalea 15, 20730 Azpeitia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

I was born Íñigo López de Loyola around 1491 at Loyola Castle in the Basque Country, a vain and ambitious young nobleman fond of military adventure. A French cannonball shattered my leg at…

Joan of Arc1412–1431

📍 2 Rue de la Basilique, 88630 Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, France

I was born in Domremy, a small village on the Meuse river in the duchy of Bar, in a stone farmhouse that still stands. I grew up spinning wool and tending cattle, a girl of the fields and…

John Wycliffe1320–1384

📍 Hipswell, Richmond, North Yorkshire DL9 4BD, England

I was born around 1320 at Hipswell in North Yorkshire and became a theologian at Oxford who challenged the wealth and authority of the medieval church a century before Luther. I argued that…

King Francis I of France1519–1547

📍 Château de Chambord, 41250 Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France

Leonardo came to Amboise already old and brought with him a lifetime's drawings. I believe he influenced the double-helix staircase here at Chambord, though I cannot prove it. I…

King Henry VIII1528–1547

📍 Hampton Court Way, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 9AU, United Kingdom

Hampton Court was Cardinal Wolsey's house until I made plain that the most magnificent palace in England was more suitable for a king than a churchman. He gave it to me in 1528 and I spent…

King Pedro I of Castile1364–1369

📍 Patio de Banderas, s/n, 41004 Seville, Spain

The old palace was a Moorish fortress — magnificent but not kingly enough for Castile's ambitions. I brought craftsmen from Granada itself, the finest Mudéjar masters, and told them to…

Leonardo da Vinci

📍 Anchiano, Vinci, Tuscany, Italy

I was born Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci on the 15th of April 1452 in Anchiano, a small hamlet near the town of Vinci in the Tuscan hills. I was the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary…

Maimonides1138–1204

📍 Calle de los Judíos 18, 14004 Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain

I was born Moses ben Maimon on the 30th of March 1138 in Córdoba, the capital of Muslim-ruled Andalusia — one of the most intellectually alive cities in the medieval world, where Muslim…

Marco Polo1275–1292

📍 Kublai Khan Palace, Beijing, China

I spent seventeen years in the service of Kublai Khan, and for much of that time I lived within his great palace in Khanbaliq — the city we now call Beijing. Nothing I had seen in Venice or…

Martin Luther1483–1546

📍 Lutherstraße 15, 06295 Lutherstadt Eisleben, Germany

I was born Martin Luther on the 10th of November 1483 in Eisleben, Saxony, the son of Hans Luther, a copper miner who had risen to become a mine owner. My father intended me for a legal…

Michelangelo1475–1488

📍 Caprese Michelangelo, AR 52033, Tuscany, Italy

I was born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on the 6th of March 1475 in Caprese, a small Tuscan village near Arezzo. My mother died when I was six and I was raised by a…

Muhammad I ibn al-Ahmar1237–1273

📍 Calle Real de la Alhambra, s/n, 18009 Granada, Spain

When I took Granada in 1237, I found a red hill above the city that commanded everything. I began with a fortress — the Alcazaba — but what I truly built was a refuge for a civilisation…

Niccolò Machiavelli1513–1527

📍 Albergaccio, Via Scopeti 64, 50026 Sant'Andrea in Percussina, Italy

I grew up in Florence, where my father, a lawyer of modest means, loved books and taught me to love the Roman historians. For fourteen years I served the Florentine republic as a secretary…

Nicolaus Copernicus1473–1483

📍 ul. Kopernika 15/17, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

I was born in 1473 in this tall Gothic brick house on what was then St Anne's Street in Toruń, a thriving Hanseatic trading city on the Vistula. It was a granary house, as the merchants…

Rabia al-Adawiyya

📍 Basra, Iraq

I was born Rabia al-Adawiyya around 717 AD in Basra, Iraq, into a poor family. According to tradition I was the fourth daughter — Rabia means fourth in Arabic. My parents died when I was…

Raphael1483–1495

📍 Via Raffaello 57, 61029 Urbino PU, Marche, Italy

I was born Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino on the 6th of April 1483 in Urbino, the capital of a small duchy in central Italy ruled by the Montefeltro family — one of the most cultivated courts…

Richard III1465–1483

📍 Middleham Castle, Castle Hill, Middleham, Leyburn DL8 4QG, UK

My father was killed at Wakefield when I was eight, and my brother Edward became king. In 1465, at about thirteen, I was sent to Middleham, the great castle of our cousin Richard Neville…

Richard the Lionheart1157–1160

📍 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2LN, UK

I was born in the King's Houses at Beaumont Palace in Oxford, just outside the city's north gate, on 8 September 1157, the third son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Beaumont was…

Robert the Bruce1274–1292

📍 Turnberry Castle, Turnberry, Girvan KA26 9LT, UK

I was born on 11 July 1274, most likely at Turnberry Castle, my mother's fortress on a rocky point of the Ayrshire coast, with the sea breaking below its walls and Ailsa Craig and Arran out…

Rumi1244–1273

📍 Aziziye Mh., Mevlana Cd. No:1, 42030 Karatay/Konya, Turkey

I was born Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi on the 30th of September 1207 in Balkh, now Afghanistan, and spent my adult life in Konya in Anatolia. In 1244 I met Shams-i-Tabrizi, a wandering…

Saint Francis of Assisi

📍 Piazza del Comune, 06081 Assisi PG, Umbria, Italy

I was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone around 1181 in Assisi, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. I grew up enjoying the pleasures that wealth provided until illness, imprisonment…

Saladin1138–1193

📍 Citadel of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

I made the Citadel of Cairo my seat of power after I became Sultan of Egypt and Syria, commanding a view of the entire Nile valley. It was a fortress, yes, but also a palace and a centre of…

Sandro Botticelli1445–1510

📍 Borgo Ognissanti, 50123 Florence, Italy

I was born in Florence in the 1440s in a house on Borgo Ognissanti, the street that runs west along the river towards the church of All Saints. My father, Mariano Filipepi, was a tanner…

Suleiman the Magnificent1520–1566

📍 Babı Hümayun Cad. No:1, 34122 Fatih, Istanbul, Turkey

From the Topkapi's innermost court I governed an empire reaching from Vienna to Basra, from Morocco to Persia. I received ambassadors from François I, the Habsburgs, the Safavids — all…

Thomas Aquinas

📍 Roccasecca, 03038 Frosinone, Lazio, Italy

I was born Tommaso d'Aquino around 1225 at Roccasecca castle in the Kingdom of Sicily, the son of a count. My family intended me for Benedictine monasticism at the prestigious Monte…

Vlad the Impaler1431–1436

📍 Casa Vlad Dracul, Piața Cetății 5, Sighișoara 545400, Romania

I was born around 1431, it is said, in the yellow-walled house on Citadel Square in Sighișoara, a Saxon merchant town on a hill in Transylvania, its walls studded with guild towers. My…

William the Conqueror1028–1047

📍 Château de Falaise, Place Guillaume le Conquérant, 14700 Falaise, France

I was born around 1028 at Falaise, a town in southern Normandy dominated by a castle on a great rock. My father was Robert, Duke of Normandy; my mother, Herleva, was the daughter of…

William Wallace1270–1290

📍 Elderslie, Renfrewshire PA5, UK

Tradition says I was born around 1270 at Elderslie, a village near Paisley in Renfrewshire, the son of a minor landowner — the old poem about me names my father Sir Malcolm of Elderslie…

Wu Zetian624–705

📍 Tang Dynasty Imperial Palace, Xian, China

I entered the imperial palace at Chang'an as a concubine of Emperor Taizong when I was fourteen years old, and I left it sixty years later as the only woman in Chinese history to rule as…

Yongle Emperor1420–1424

📍 4 Jingshan Front St, Dongcheng, Beijing 100009, China

From the Meridian Gate's uppermost tower, the empire stretched in every direction — six hundred rooms, a thousand courtyards, all arranged to reflect the order of heaven. I chose these…