1321

Dante’s The Divine Comedy is written not in Latin but in an Italian dialect.

1325

The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, is founded on the site of present-day Mexico City.

1428*

The Aztec poet-emperor Nezahualcóyotl creates the Council of Music, for the study of art, astronomy, medicine, literature and history.

1440

Cosimo de Medici founds the Florentine Academy, for the study of antiquity and the patronage of the arts and sciences.

1478

Ferdinand and Isabella receive papal approval to establish the Spanish Inquisition.

1492

Columbus discovers India somewhere near the Bahamas.

1517

Bartolomeo de las Casas, first Spanish priest ordained in the New World, begins a campaign against the oppression of the American Indians.

1519

Cortés lands on the shores of the Aztec empire.

1520

A guest of the Aztec emperor, Hernán Cortés takes his host prisoner.

1521

The Aztec capital is sacked after a siege and naval blockade.

1532

A guest of the Inca emperor, Francisco Pizarro takes his host prisoner.

1543

In Mexico, the apostolic inquisitor Juan de Zumárraga is relieved of his position, for excess of zeal.

1571

The Spanish conquest of the Philippines consolidated, Spain is a dominant power on four continents.

1577

Catholic mystic and poet John of the Cross is imprisoned in Toledo, Spain; composes Dark Night of the Soul subsequent to his escape.

1583

Examined at length by the Inquisition, The Interior Castle by Saint Teresa of Avila is published following her death.

1588

First performance of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.
The Spanish Armada is destroyed off the English coast.

1589*

The grandfather of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is born in Andalusia, Spain.

1600

Philosopher Giordano Bruno, author of On the Infinite Universe and Worlds, dies at the stake in Rome following an eight-year trial.

1600

Shakespeare writes Julius Caesar and Hamlet.

1615

Cervantes completes Don Quixote.

1618

Start of Thirty Years’ War; Sor Juana’s grandfather is enlisted.

1624*

Sor Juana’s grandfather leaves for the New World.

1630

Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina creates the character of Don Juan in The Libertine of Seville and the Stone Guest.

1633

The Holy Office of the Inquisition begins the trial of Galileo.

1634

An affair involving Cardinal Richelieu of France, the Ursuline convent of Loudun, demonic possession of nuns, priestly satyriasis and exorcisms, culminates in Pastor Urbain Grandier’s being burned alive at the stake.

1648

Sor Juana is born Juana Inés Ramírez de Santillana y Asbaje in a mountain village near Mexico City.
End of Thirty Years’ War.

1649

Massive auto-de-fe conducted by the Inquisition in Mexico City.

1650

René Descartes dies at the palace of Queen Christina in Sweden.

1659

In Spain, the painter Velázquez is made Knight of the Order of Santiago.

1660

Peace of the Pyrenees: Louis XIV of France marries Maria Teresa, daughter of the Spanish king Philip IV.

1661

Hunchbacked, mentally deficient, Carlos, future king of Spain, is born to Philip IV and his niece, Queen Mariana.

1664

At the age of sixteen, the poetess Juana Inés Ramírez de Santillana enters the Viceroyal Palace in Mexico City as handmaiden to the new vice-queen.

1665

In the year of his death, Philip IV loses Portugal, his army reduced from 15,000 to 8000 in eight hours of battle.

1665

A royal edict is issued forbidding that unauthorized books enter the Americas.

1666

Antonio Núñez, a Jesuit officer of the Inquisition, is appointed Juana’s confessor.

1667

John Milton completes Paradise Lost.
Juana Ramírez quits the palace for the ultra-strict convent of San José, and leaves three months later.

1669

Juana enters the convent of San Jerónimo, eventually choosing the religious name of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

1680

Grandiose auto-de-fe in Madrid; the Queen Mother attends in the company of her dwarf Lucillo.
A comet, eventually to be named after Edmond Halley, appears over Europe and America.

1680

The celebrated poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is commissioned to create The Allegorical Neptune in welcome to the incoming viceroy and vice-queen, an auspicious beginning to Sor Juana’s most productive period..

1687

Isaac Newton publishes his Principia Mathematica.

1690

Sor Juana’s published theological arguments attract the notice of the Inquisition.

1691

Inquisition proceedings are instituted against a priest defending Sor Juana.
August 23rd, a total eclipse of the sun.

1692

Floods, crop infestations, famine in Mexico. In June, a revolt against Spanish authority.

1693

The Archbishop of Mexico publishes an edict condemning the scandal and disorder in the city’s twenty-two convents. Sor Juana ceases all writing and study.

1694

Sor Juana’s defender is condemned by the Inquisition.

1695

Plague enters Mexico City. Death of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, aged forty-six.