the importance of mathematical perspective, in the creation of three-dimensional vision on a two-dimensional plane. This follows the ideas of Masaccio, and his concepts of linear perspective and vanishing point in artwork. Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia becomes the first European to explore the western coast of Africa, past the Tropic of Cancer. Johannes Gutenberg begins work on the printing press. Births January 20 – Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Japanese shōgun (d. 1490) January 26 – Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Lancastrian military commander during the English Wars of the Roses (d. 1464) February 26 – Imagawa Yoshitada, 9th head of the Imagawa clan in Japan (d. 1476) April 4 – Amalia of Saxony, Duchess of Bavaria-Landshut (d. 1501) June 6 – Regiomontanus, German astronomer (d. 1476) November 5 – Richard Grey, 3rd Earl of Tankerville, English nobleman, attainted as a Yorkist supporter during the Wars of the Roses (d. 1466) November 16 – Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice (d. 1521) November 26 – Princess Catherine of Portugal, nun and writer (d. 1463) date unknown Sheikh Hamdullah, Anatolian Islamic calligrapher (d. 1520) Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Spanish cardinal and statesman (d. 1517) Hernando del Pulgar, Spanish writer (d. c. 1492) Abi Ahmet Celebi, chief physician of the Ottoman Empire (writer of a study on kidney and bladder stones; supporter of the research of Jewish doctor Musa Colinus ul-Israil on the application of drugs; founder of the first Ottoman medical school) Deaths Winter – Alexander I Aldea, Prince of Wallachia (probably of illness) (b.1397) May 4 – Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, Swedish statesman and rebel leader (murdered) (b. c. 1390) October 8 – Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, Dutch sovereign (b. 1401) December 30 – Louis III, Elector Palatine (b. 1378) date unknown – Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī, Persian mathematician (b. 1364) References