Boccaccio begins his Decameron, supposedly the stories told by young Florentine men and women sheltering from the Black Death

Armies of mercenaries, led by condottieri, conduct Italian warfare at an often extortionate rate

Boccaccio, visiting Petrarch in Florence, is inspired to devote himself to the pursuit of classical studies

A great clock is completed in Padua, regulated mechanically by foliot and escapement

The papal curia returns to Rome in what would seem a conclusive move if there were not, two years later, two popes - one of them elected back in Avignon

John Hawkwood, a condottiere in command of the White Company, is appointed captain general of Florence

The French cardinals, objecting to the new Italian pope, elect their own man as Clement VII - and thus inaugurate the Great Schism of the papacy

The Venetian blockade of Chioggia costs Genoa her fleet and ends Genoese rivalry with Venice in the eastern Mediterranean

Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the signore of Milan, sets about enlarging his territory - seizing Vicenza, Verona and Padua between 1384 and 1388

Majolica, or tin-glazed earthenware, reaches Italy from Majorca and thus gets its name

Pisa is captured by Florence, to be followed a few years later by the purchase of the seaport of Livorno

The Council at Pisa elects a new pope, Alexander V, without persuading the other two to resign - bringing the total to an unprecedented three

The linen drapers of Florence commission a statue of St Mark from Donatello, who carves for Orsanmichele the first free-standing Renaissance sculpture

Filippo Brunelleschi begins studying the ruins of classical Rome, with a view to rediscovering classical architecture

A competition is launched for an architect to construct a dome above Florence's cathedral, and is won by Brunelleschi

Masaccio paints some of the frescoes in the chapel of a Florentine silk merchant, Felice Brancacci, in Santa Maria del Carmine

Work begins in Florence on Brunelleschi's Pazzi chapel, which encapsulates in miniature the new ideals of Renaissance architecture

Cosimo de' Medici, arrested by a rival faction, escapes with his life thanks to bribes and well-placed friends

Perspective fascinates Italian Renaissance painters after the publication of Alberti's treatise on the subject, De Pictura

Florence acquires first-hand experience of Greek culture when Greek Orthodox priests join in a debate on theology, in particular the question of Filioque

Naples is captured by Alfonso V, breaking the link with France and uniting Sicily and Naples as an Aragonese kingdom

The Dominican convent of San Marco, in Florence, is provided with a serenely beautiful series of frescoes by Fra Angelico and his assistants

Piero della Francesca paints masterpieces in his small home town of San Sepolcro

Francesco Sforza, a soldier of fortune, wins power in Milan

Paolo Uccello is interested in the laws of perspective, in works such as The Battle of San Romano