1540 deaths

Italian writer, historian and politician (1483-1540)

Spanish philosopher

English statesman and politician (1485–1540)

King of Hungary, Prince of Transylvania

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma. His work is characterized by a "refined sensuality" and often elongation of forms and includes Vision of Saint Jerome (1527) and the iconic if somewhat anomalous Madonna with the Long Neck (1534), and he remains the best known artist of the first generation whose whole careers fall into the Mannerist period.

Italian painter

French scholar, humanist and administrator (1467-1540)

Foundress of the Ursulines

Marquis and later first Duke of Mantua (1500-1540)

emperor of Ethiopia (1496-1540)

mistress of Henry VIII

German painter and engraver (1502-1540)

Portuguese Infanta

Roman Catholic cardinal (1509-1540)

Spanish explorer

German artist (1480-1540)

Italian engraver (c. 1490 – c. 1540)

Holy Roman Empire statesman, cardinal and Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg (1469-1540)

Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Prince of Calenberg

German sculptor (c. 1465–1540)

Portuguese Renaissance painter (c.1470-c.1540)

Count of East Frisia

16th-century German poet

English priest and Catholic martyr

German sculptor (1485-1546)

French cardinal

Italian noble

Spanish artist (1480–1540)

Franciscan friar and cardinal

Principal consort of Safavid shah Ismail I (c.1485–1540)

German conquistador

Prince of Moldavia from 1538 to 1540

Swiss protestant reformer

Spanish cardinal

Portuguese viceroy

Tuskaloosa (less commonly spelled as Tuskalusa, Tastaluca, Tuskaluza) (birthdate unknown, - 1540) was a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. His people were ancestors to the several southern Native American confederacies (the Choctaw and Creek peoples) who later emerged in the region. The modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama is named in his honor.

Italian Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal

Aquiminzaque (Chibcha: Aquim ó Quiminza, died Tunja, 1540) was the last hoa of Hunza, on which the Spanish city of Tunja (in present-day Colombia) was built, reigning from 1537 until his death. His psihipqua counterpart in the southern area of the Muisca was Sagipa. Aquiminzaque was for the Muisca what Túpac Amaru was for the Inca; and as the Inca leader, Quiminza was executed by decapitation.

German engraver (1495-1540)

Spanish noble

Second Emperor of the Mạc dynasty

Italian politician; Doge of the Republic of Genoa (1460-1540)

Bishop of Olomouc (1470–1540)

Italian condottiero, son of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga

English noble, born in Wales

General and 1st count of Hoogstraten and of Culemborg

Dutch nobleman (1489-1540)

German humanist

bishop in the 16th century

German merchant

Dutch stadtholder (1480-1540)

Italian religious, theologian and philosopher

English martyr

Lithuanian noble (1462–1540)

English Earl

Polish archbishop

ferrarese nobleman

Swiss-German publisher and printer, active 1518-1540

Prince-Bishop of Wurzburg

Italian painter (1487-1540)