Fra Bartolomeo had been commissioned to create…

Ayutthayya, taking the offensive against Chiang Mai in 1508, invades and capture Phrae, but, its forces losing a bloody battle nearby, is forced to withdraw.

The Russians, under a truce signed in 1508, retain the lands they have conquered, but Moscow’s relations with the Lithuanians and the Poles continue to be hostile.

The current Russo-Lithuanian War is intertwined with a rebellion by Michael Glinski, Court Marshal of Lithuania, a favorite of Alexander Jagiellon and a man of opportunity.

Sigismund, on ascending the Lithuanian throne, had not shown the same favors to Glinski.

Jan Jurjewicz Zabrzeziński, Voivode of Trakai and Glinki's old political opponent, has accused Glinski of treason—he alleges that Glinski had poisoned Grand Duke Alexander and has ambitions of becoming king himself.

Glinski now organizes a rebellion, murders Zabrzeziński in February 1508, and declares himself defender of the Orthodox faith (even though he is a Catholic of Mongol descent).

His followers unsuccessfully attack the Kaunas Castle in an attempt to liberate prisoner Ahmad, Khan of the Great Horde.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, born in Kronach (from which his surname is derived) and a probable student of his father Hans, an engraver, had begun in 1500 to paint portraits for academic patrons in Vienna.

His work had then drawn the attention of Duke Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, known as Frederick the Wise, who attaches Cranach to his court in 1504.

Cranach is to remain in the service of the Elector and his successors for the rest of his life, although he will be able to undertake other work.

The first evidence of Cranach's skill as an artist comes in a picture dated 1504.

Early in his career he is active in several branches of his profession: sometimes a decorative painter, more frequently producing portraits and altarpieces, woodcuts, engravings, and designing the coins for the electorate.

Early in the days of his official employment he startles his master's courtiers by the realism with which he paints still life, game and antlers on the walls of the country palaces at Coburg and Locha; his pictures of deer and wild boar are considered striking, and the duke fosters his passion for this form of art by taking him out to the hunting field, where he sketches "his grace" running the stag, or Duke John sticking a boar.

Before 1508 he had painted several altarpieces for the Castle Church at Wittenberg in competition with Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair and others; the duke and his brother John were portrayed in various attitudes and a number of his best woodcuts and copperplates were published.

Cranach is equally successful in somewhat naive mythological scenes, in which at least one slim female figure, naked except for a transparent drape, and perhaps for a large hat, nearly always features.

These subjects show Italian influences including that of Jacopo de' Barberi, who is at the court of Saxony for a period up to 1505.

They then become rare until after the death of Frederick the Wise.

Ismail makes the rulers of Khuzestan, …

…Lorestan, and …

…Kurdistan become his vassals in 1508.

During the same year, …

…Ismail and Husayn Beg Shamlu peacefully seize Baghdad, thus putting an end to the Ak Koyunlu.

However, Ismail’s armies zealously murder Sunnis and actively persecute them through tribal allies of the Shah.

His armies also destroy several important Sunni sites, including the tombs of Abū Ḥanīfa and Abdul-Qadir Gilani.

The Safavids even expel the family of Gilani from Mesopotamia.

After declaring Shiism the official form of Islam in Iraq, Ismail forces his new Iraqi subjects to convert to Shiism and outlaws Sunni practices.

He then returns to Persia.

These draconian actions by the conquering Safavids cause the Mesopotamian Sunnis to seethe with resentment.

The Mamluk fleet, again under Amir Husain Al-Kurdi, had been sent to India in 1507.

The Mamluks allied themselves with the Muslim Sultanate of Gujarat, the first naval power of India at this time.

The fleet is warmly welcome in the port of Diu, a city at the mouth of the Gulf of Khambhat.

Girgione’s Portrait of a Young Man (now in Berlin) is even more striking.

Few of the portraits attributed to Giorgione appear as straightforward records of the appearance of a commissioning individual, though it is perfectly possible that many are.

Many can be read as types designed to express a mood or atmosphere, and certainly many of the examples of the portrait tradition Giorgione has initiated appear to have had this purpose, and not to have been sold to the sitter.

The subjects of his non-religious figure paintings are equally hard to discern.

Perhaps the first question to ask is whether there was intended to be a specific meaning to these paintings that ingenious research can hope to recover.