List of unusual deaths in the Renaissance

!scope="col"|Image

!scope="col"|Date of death

!scope="col"|Details

|File:George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence.jpg

|{{dts|18 February 1478}}

|The 1st Duke of Clarence was allegedly executed by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine, apparently his own choice once he accepted he was to be killed.{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=C. J. S.|title=Mysteries of History with Accounts of Some Remarkable Characters and Charlatans|pages=31 ff.|location=Kila, Montana|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|year=2004|orig-date=1928}}{{verify source|date=October 2024}}{{Cite web|title=20 Unusual Deaths from the History Books|url=https://historycollection.com/20-unusual-deaths-from-the-history-books/|author=Steve|date=2019-08-07|access-date=2024-09-05|website=History Collection}}{{cite web|title=Top 10 Strangest Deaths in the Middle Ages|website=Medievalists.net|department=Features|date=2023-07-16|access-date=2024-10-14|url=https://www.medievalists.net/2023/07/strangest-deaths-middle-ages/}}{{unreliable source?|date=October 2024}}

|File:Portrait of King Charles VIII of France (1470–1498), by anonymous artist, 16th century (cropped) 2.jpg

|{{dts|7 April 1498}}

|The French king died as a result of striking his head on the lintel of a door while on his way to watch a game of real tennis.{{cite book|last=Marvin|first=Frederic Rowland|title=The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women|location=Troy, New York|publisher=C. A. Brewster & Co.|year=1900|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TUzAQAAMAAJ|access-date=2024-11-20|via=Google Books|quote=To some of the most distinguished of our race death has come in the strangest possible way, and so grotesquely as to subtract greatly from the dignity of the sorrow it must certainly have occasioned.}}{{Rp|105}}{{Cite journal|last1=Zanello|first1=Marc|last2=Roux|first2=Alexandre|last3=Gavaret|first3=Martine|last4=Bartolomei|first4=Fabrice|last5=Huberfeld|first5=Gilles|last6=Charlier|first6=Philippe|last7=Georges-Zimmermann|first7=Patrice|last8=Carron|first8=Romain|last9=Pallud|first9=Johan|date=December 2021|title=King Charles VIII of France's Death: From an Unsubstantiated Traumatic Brain Injury to More Realistic Hypotheses|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1878875021013991|journal=World Neurosurgery|volume=156|pages=60–67|doi=10.1016/j.wneu.2021.09.056|pmid=34537407|quote=All who looked into this curious death had dwelled on the frontal blow to head {{sic}} that the king had sustained right before his demise and had not considered alternative scenarios.|via=Elsevier Science Direct}}{{Cite web|date=2023-06-17|title=Histoire en Touraine: La mort étrange du roi Charles VIII à Amboise|trans-title=History in Touraine: The strange death of King Charles VIII in Amboise|url=https://www.francebleu.fr/emissions/histoire-en-touraine/histoire-en-touraine-la-mort-etrange-du-roi-charles-viii-a-amboise-8211772|access-date=2024-10-05|website=France Bleu Touraine|language=fr}}

|File:Dancingplague2.jpg

|{{dts|July 1518}}

|Several people died of either heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion during a dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (Holy Roman Empire).{{Cite journal|last=Waller|first=John C.|date=September 2008|title=In a spin: the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518|journal=Endeavour|volume=32|issue=3|pages=117–121|doi=10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.05.001|pmid=18602695|quote=In 1518, one of the strangest epidemics in recorded history struck the city of Strasbourg.}}{{Cite journal|last=Clementz|first=Élisabeth|year=2016|title=Waller (John), Les danseurs fous de Strasbourg. Une épidémie de transe collective en 1518|trans-title=Waller (John), The Mad Dancers of Strasbourg. An Epidemic of Mass Trance in 1518|url=http://alsace.revues.org/2457|journal=Revue d'Alsace|volume=142|issue=142 |pages=451–453|doi=10.4000/alsace.2457|language=fr|quote=Ce sont les « Annales de Brant », la chronique de Hieronymus Gebwiller et la réponse du Magistrat de Strasbourg à l'évêque, qui lui demandait des informations sur cette inhabituelle maladie...|trans-quote=These are the "Annales de Brant", the chronicle of Hieronymus Gebwiller and the response of the Magistrate of Strasbourg to the bishop, who asked him for information on this unusual disease...}}

|

|{{dts|13 November 1536}}

|The 47-year-old merchant and MP was killed in London by a wheellock pistol, making his death the first political assassination performed by a firearm.{{cite web|department=Who's Who in Wolf Hall|url=https://tudortimes.co.uk/politics-economy/whos-who-in-wolf-hall/pakington-robinson|website=Tudor Times|date=2015-01-20|title=Chapter 7: Pakington – Robinson|access-date=2024-10-05|quote=Pakington was shot and killed in 1536, an extremely unusual occurrence.}}{{Cite magazine|last=Abernethy|first=Susan|date=March 2022|title=The Assassination of Robert Pakington, MP|url=https://www.tudorsociety.com/wp-content/plugins/s2member-files/magazines/Tudor_Life_March_2022_l.pdf|access-date=2024-02-03|magazine=Tudor Life|pages=58–61|issue=91|quote=In the early hours of the dawn, on Novmeber 13, 1536, as a wealthy merchant and member of Parliament was on his way to mass, the unthinkable happened.}}

|File:La muerte de Pietro Aretino, por Anselm Feuerbach.jpg

|{{dts|21 October 1556}}

|The influential Italian author and libertine is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much at an obscene joke during a meal in Venice. Another version states that he fell from a chair from too much laughter, fracturing his skull.{{Cite book|title=Tiziano|last1=Caroli|first1=Flavio|last2=Zuffi|first2=Stefano|publisher=Rusconi|year=1990|isbn=978-8818230277|location=Milan|pages=199–200}}{{verify source|date=October 2024}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Mental Floss|last=Wallace|first=Lorna|date=2023-03-13|access-date=2024-09-01|title=13 Authors Whose Deaths Were Stranger Than Fiction|url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/strange-author-deaths}}{{unreliable source?|date=October 2024}}

|File:Henry II of France-François Clouet (altered).jpg

|{{dts|10 July 1559}}

|On 30 June 1559, a tournament was held near Place des Vosges to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the French king's longtime enemies, the Habsburgs of Austria, and to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth of Valois to King Philip II of Spain. During a jousting match, Henry, wearing the colors of his mistress Diane de Poitiers,{{sfn|Wellman|2013|p=213}} was wounded in the eye by a fragment of the splintered lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the King's Scottish Guard.{{sfn|Baumgartner|1988|p=250}} Despite the efforts of royal surgeons Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, the court doctors ultimately "advocated a wait-and-see strategy";{{cite journal|last1=Zanello|first1=Marc|last2=Charlier|first2=Philippe|last3=Corns|first3=Robert|last4=Devaux|first4=Bertrand|last5=Berche|first5=Patrick|last6=Pallud|first6=Johan|date=January 2015|title=The death of Henry II, King of France (1519–1559). From myth to medical and historical fact|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25421951/|journal=Acta Neurochir (Wien)|volume=157|issue=1|pages=145–9|doi=10.1007/s00701-014-2280-9|pmid=25421951|s2cid=24693363|access-date=2022-08-24}} as a result, the king's untreated eye and brain damage led to his death by sepsis ten days later.{{sfn|Baumgartner|1988|p=252}} His death played a significant role in the decline of jousting as a sport, particularly in France.{{sfn|Barber|Barker|1989|p=134, 139}}

|File:Amyrobsart.jpg

|{{dts|8 September 1560}}

|The 28-year-old wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was found dead by a staircase with two wounds on her head and a broken neck. Theories suggest she threw herself down the stairs.{{cite journal|last1=Patel|first1=Sachin K|first2=Richard|last2=Jacobs|title=The suspicious demise of Amy Robsart|journal=The Iowa Orthopaedic Journal|volume=23|year=2003|pages=130–1|pmid=14575263|pmc=1888393|quote=Does there not lurk within the heart of every orthopedist interest in the unusual?}}{{cite magazine|date=2022-10-23|magazine=Retrospect Journal|last=Wallace|first=Naomi|title=Tudor True Crime: The Bizarre Death of Amy Dudley|url=https://retrospectjournal.com/2022/10/23/tudor-true-crime-the-bizarre-death-of-amy-dudley/|publisher=Edinburgh University|access-date=2024-09-07|quote=Though precisely why or by who remains unclear, I struggle to see how, given the strangeness of the circumstances, many historians are so quick to rule out murder.}}

|File:Braunau am Inn 003.JPG

|{{dts|28 September 1567}}

|The burgomaster of Braunau am Inn (then Bavaria, now Austria) died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard.{{Cite book|last=Kyselak|first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Kyselak|url=https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10469132|title=Skizzen einer Fußreise durch Oesterreich, Steiermark, Kärnthen, Berchtesgaden, Tirol und Baiern nach Wien|publisher=Pichler|year=1829 |volume=2|location=Vienna|pages=202|language=de|trans-title=Sketches of a Walking Tour Through Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Tyrol and Bavaria to Vienna|quote=Dieser Hanns Steininger mußte das Opfer seiner angestaunten Merkwürdigkeit werden...|trans-quote=This Hanns Steininger had to become the victim of his astonished strangeness...|via=Munich Digitization Center}}{{Cite web|date=2019-05-20|title=Prost, Herr Steininger: Bierkrug des Stadthauptmanns wieder in Braunau|trans-title=Cheers, Mr. Steininger: The city captain's beer mug back in Braunau|url=https://www.nachrichten.at/oberoesterreich/innviertel/prost-herr-steininger-bierkrug-des-stadthauptmanns-wieder-in-braunau;art70,3130714|access-date=2024-10-06|website=Oberösterreichische Nachrichten|language=de|quote="...Es dürfte sich aber bei all diesen seltsamen Erzählungen mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit um Volkssagen handeln", resümieren Manfred und Tamara Rachbauer.|trans-quote="...But all these strange tales are most likely folk tales," Manfred and Tamara Rachbauer conclude.}} The beard, which was {{convert|4.5|ft}} long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.{{cite web|last=Bryant|first=Charles W.|title=10 Bizarre Ways to Die|website=HowStuffWorks|department=Death & Dying|url=https://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/10-ways-to-die.htm|access-date=2024-08-28|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140217225516/http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/10-ways-to-die3.htm|archive-date=2014-02-17|date=2009-03-09}}

|File:Tiziano aspetti, busto di marcantonio bragadin, 1571 ca..JPG

|{{dts|17 August 1571}}

|The Venetian Captain-General of Famagusta in Cyprus, was gruesomely killed after the Ottomans took over the city. He was dragged around the walls with sacks of earth and stone on his back; next, he was tied to a chair and hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship, where he was exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally, he was taken to his place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column, and flayed alive.{{Cite book|title=A History of Venice|title-link=A History of Venice|last=Norwich|first=John Julius|author-link=John Julius Norwich|publisher=Vintage Books|year=1982|isbn=0679721975|location=New York|page=479}} Bragadin's skin was stuffed with straw and sewn, reinvested with his military insignia, and exhibited riding an ox in a mocking procession along the streets of Famagusta. The macabre trophy was hoisted upon the masthead pennant of the personal galley of the Ottoman commander, Amir al-bahr Mustafa Pasha, to be taken to Constantinople as a gift for Sultan Selim II. Bragadin's skin was stolen in 1580 by a Venetian seaman and brought back to Venice, where it was received as a returning hero.{{Cite book|title=Venice : A New History|last=Madden|first=Thomas F.|author-link=Thomas F. Madden|publisher=Viking|year=2012|isbn=978-0670025428|location=New York|page=334}}

|File:Oxford CountyHall BlackAssize.jpg

|{{dts|July 1577}}

|In Oxford, England, at least 300 people, including Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Robert Bell and Serjeant Nicholas Barham, died in the aftermath of the trial of Rowland Jenkes, a Catholic bookseller convicted of distributing pamphlets defaming Queen Elizabeth I, at the assize at Oxford. The dead reportedly included no women or children.{{Cite book|last=Webster|first=John|author-link=John Webster (minister)|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72654/pg72654-images.html|title=The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft|publisher=J.M.|year=1677|location=London|pages=245|quote=It fortuned that a Manuscript fell into my hands, collected by an ancient Gentleman of York, who was a great observer and gatherer of strange things and facts, who lived about the time of this accident happening at Oxford, wherein it is related thus...|via=Project Gutenberg}}{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/wondersoflittlew00wanluoft#page/n107|pages=110–117|volume=1|chapter=Chapter XXVIII: Of the different and unusual Ways by which some Men have come to their Deaths §{{nnbsp}}7|year=1806|first1=Nathaniel|last1=Wanley|first2=William|last2=Johnston|title=The Wonders of the Little World; Or, A General History of Man: Displaying the Various Faculties, Capacities, Powers and Defects of the Human Body and Mind, in Many Thousand Most Interesting Relations of Persons Remarkable for Bodily Perfections or Defects; Collected from the Writings of the Most Approved Historians, Philosophers, and Physicians, of All Ages and Countries – Book I: Which treats of the Perfections, Powers, Capacities, Defects, Imperfections, and Deformities of the Body of Man|location=London|edition=A new|asin=B001F3H1XA|lccn=07003035|oclc=847968918|ol=7188480M|access-date=2024-07-23|via=Internet Archive}}

|File:ExecutionOf_MaryQueenOfScots_DrawingBy_RobertBeale_1587.png

|{{dts|8 February 1587}}

|The 44-year-old queen of Scotland was told that she was to be executed for plotting the assassination of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. However, when the executioner, only known as Bull, prepared to chop off her head with an axe, the first blow did not kill Mary. It only hit her head. The second blow severed her neck, but the tendon was still left. The executioner later pulled off Mary's head only to reveal that her hair was a wig.{{cite web|date=2014-07-14|title=10 Historical Figures Who Died Unusual Deaths|url=https://www.historyhit.com/historical-figures-who-died-unusual-deaths/|website=History Hit|department=Medieval|access-date=2024-09-01}}{{cite web|last=Leggett|first=George|title=The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots|website=The Bristorian|url=https://www.thebristorian.co.uk/the-past-today/maryqueenofscots|department=The Past Today|quote=The execution in itself was an unusual one...|access-date=2024-11-20}}

|File:Andrew Perne Peterhouse.jpg

|{{dts|26 April 1589}}

|The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and Dean of Ely was known for his frequent religious conversions to match the established faith of the time in England. He reportedly died due to having heard the jester of Queen Elizabeth I make a joke about his uncertain spiritual state, referring to him as "one that is neither heaven nor earth, but hangs betwixt both".{{Cite book|last=Kinnersley|first=Thomas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zts_AQAAMAAJ|title=A Selection of Sepulchral Curiosities, with a Biographical Sketch on Human Longevity|publisher=T. Kinnersley|year=1823|location=New York|pages=214|quote=Fuller, the historian, tells an extraordinary story relating to Doctor Perne's death, which he attributes to the mortification he received from a jest passed upon him by the Queen's fool.|via=Google Books}}

|File:Tycho Brahe.JPG

|{{dts|24 October 1601}}

|The astronomer contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague and died eleven days later. According to Johannes Kepler's first-hand account, Brahe had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself, because it would have been a breach of etiquette.Thoren (1990{{Broken anchor|date=2024-06-12|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=#VET|reason= }}, p.[https://books.google.com/books?id=F5a83U4B8XkC&pg=PA468 468–69]){{cite news|first=John|last=Tierney|title=Murder! Intrigue! Astronomers?|department=Findings|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/science/30tierney.html|quote=At the time of Tycho's death, in 1601, the blame fell on his failure to relieve himself while drinking profusely at the banquet, supposedly injuring his bladder and making him unable to urinate.|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2010-11-29|access-date=2010-11-30|author-link=John Tierney (journalist)|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219195755/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/science/30tierney.html|archive-date=2013-12-19}}{{Cite web|last=Paoletti|first=Gabe|editor-last=Kuroski|editor-first=John|date=2019-07-31|orig-date=Originally published 13 November 2017|title=The Strange Deaths Of 16 Historic And Famous Figures|url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/strange-deaths|access-date=2024-08-08|website=All That's Interesting|quote=Many of history's most important figures have suffered strange deaths that do not seem to befit their noble legacy.}} After he had returned home, he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain.{{cite book|last=Dreyer|first=J. L. E.|author-link=John Louis Emil Dreyer|title=Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ywaut_U5q00C&pg=PA309|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|year=1890|page=309|isbn=978-0-7661-8529-6|via=Google Books}} Though initially ascribed to a kidney stone, and later still to potential mercury poisoning, modern analyses indicate Brahe's death resulted from a fatal case of uremia caused by an inflamed prostate.{{cite journal|last=Gotfredsen|first=Edvard|date=1955-01-01|title=Tycho Brahes sidste sygdom og død|trans-title=The final illness and death of Tycho Brahe|journal=Fund og Forskning I Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger|volume=2|pages=33–38|doi=10.7146/fof.v2i1.41115|language=da|url=https://tidsskrift.dk/fundogforskning/article/view/41115|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last=Wyner|first=Lawrence M|date=2015-11-05|title=Urologic Demise of Astronomer Tycho Brahe: A Cosmic Case of Urinary Retention|journal=Urology|volume=88|pages=22–35|doi=10.1016/j.urology.2015.10.006|pmid=26548950}}