1577 - 1640 Flanders (Belgium)

Rubens brought together the best of Italian and Dutch renaissance painting into a lush style that has become known as Baroque. His ability to bring the human form and flesh alive continues to amaze. He was also, by the way, a skilled diplomat who quietly helped maintain peace between Holland’s independent north and his own Spanish-controlled south.

“This simple and most elusive of truths surrounds us. Your enemy is that stroke of red. You are that stroke of blue. Your enemy is that stroke of white. You are that stroke of black. You complete each other.” 

Philippus Paracelsus

1493-1541 Switzerland

“Alchemists” have unfortunately come to be trivialized as people on a Quixotic quest to make base metals into gold. Paracelsus was a true alchemist—a brilliant medieval physician and chemist who combined breakthrough scientific discoveries with careful observation and traditional folk wisdom to, literally, bring medicine out of the “dark ages” and lay the foundation for both traditional and “complementary” modern healthcare.

“Oh…if I could but transform the wisdom of the dead into the understanding of the living that, that would be alchemy.” 

1533-1603 England

Through skilled diplomacy, uncommon wisdom, and unparalleled charisma, the brilliant and beloved “Virgin Queen” Elizabeth brought religious peace to England during the worst days of Protestant-Catholic conflict. And, with minor exceptions, she maintained military peace with other nations during those treacherous times during which Western European countries were incessantly vying for control of the New World, and each other. She also inspired extraordinary achievements by many of her most famous and loyal subjects—from Sir Francis Drake to William Shakespeare.

“To stay in the presence of conflict without flinching, without reaching for the weapon, without signing the order of execution, without agreeing to the marriage takes real courage.”