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This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout the Renaissance period, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.

• The dancing plague of 1518
• The tournament that led to the death of Henry II of France
• The skinning of Marco Antonio Bragadin

Renaissance

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence		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.
Charles VIII of France		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.
Victims of the 1518 dancing plague		July 1518	Several people died of either heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion during a dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (Holy Roman Empire).
Pietro Aretino		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.
Henry II of France		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, was wounded in the eye by a fragment of the splintered lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the King's Scottish Guard. Despite the efforts of royal surgeons Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, the court doctors ultimately "advocated a wait-and-see strategy"; as a result, the king's untreated eye and brain damage led to his death by sepsis ten days later. His death played a significant role in the decline of jousting as a sport, particularly in France.
Amy Robsart		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.
Hans Staininger		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. The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 m) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.
Marco Antonio Bragadin		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. 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.
Victims of the Black Assize of Oxford 1577		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.
Mary, Queen of Scots		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.
Andrew Perne		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".
Tycho Brahe		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. After he had returned home, he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain. 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.

References

1. Thompson, C. J. S. (2004) . Mysteries of History with Accounts of Some Remarkable Characters and Charlatans. Kila, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. pp. 31 ff.
2. ^ Steve (7 August 2019). "20 Unusual Deaths from the History Books". History Collection. Retrieved 5 September 2024.
3. "Top 10 Strangest Deaths in the Middle Ages". Features. Medievalists.net. 16 July 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
4. Marvin, Frederic Rowland (1900). The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. Troy, New York: C. A. Brewster & Co. Retrieved 20 November 2024 – via Google Books. 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.
5. Zanello, Marc; Roux, Alexandre; Gavaret, Martine; Bartolomei, Fabrice; Huberfeld, Gilles; Charlier, Philippe; Georges-Zimmermann, Patrice; Carron, Romain; Pallud, Johan (December 2021). "King Charles VIII of France's Death: From an Unsubstantiated Traumatic Brain Injury to More Realistic Hypotheses". World Neurosurgery. 156: 60–67. doi:10.1016/j.wneu.2021.09.056. PMID 34537407 – via Elsevier Science Direct. 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.
6. "Histoire en Touraine: La mort étrange du roi Charles VIII à Amboise" [History in Touraine: The strange death of King Charles VIII in Amboise]. France Bleu Touraine (in French). 17 June 2023. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
7. Waller, John C. (September 2008). "In a spin: the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518". Endeavour. 32 (3): 117–121. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.05.001. PMID 18602695. In 1518, one of the strangest epidemics in recorded history struck the city of Strasbourg.
8. Clementz, Élisabeth (2016). "Waller (John), Les danseurs fous de Strasbourg. Une épidémie de transe collective en 1518" [Waller (John), The Mad Dancers of Strasbourg. An Epidemic of Mass Trance in 1518]. Revue d'Alsace (in French). 142 (142): 451–453. doi:10.4000/alsace.2457. 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... [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...]
9. Caroli, Flavio; Zuffi, Stefano (1990). Tiziano. Milan: Rusconi. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-8818230277.
10. Wallace, Lorna (13 March 2023). "13 Authors Whose Deaths Were Stranger Than Fiction". Mental Floss. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
11. Wellman 2013, p. 213.
12. Baumgartner 1988, p. 250.
13. Zanello, Marc; Charlier, Philippe; Corns, Robert; Devaux, Bertrand; Berche, Patrick; Pallud, Johan (January 2015). "The death of Henry II, King of France (1519–1559). From myth to medical and historical fact". Acta Neurochir (Wien). 157 (1): 145–9. doi:10.1007/s00701-014-2280-9. PMID 25421951. S2CID 24693363. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
14. Baumgartner 1988, p. 252.
15. Barber & Barker 1989, p. 134, 139.
16. Patel, Sachin K; Jacobs, Richard (2003). "The suspicious demise of Amy Robsart". The Iowa Orthopaedic Journal. 23: 130–1. PMC 1888393. PMID 14575263. Does there not lurk within the heart of every orthopedist interest in the unusual?
17. Wallace, Naomi (23 October 2022). "Tudor True Crime: The Bizarre Death of Amy Dudley". Retrospect Journal. Edinburgh University. Retrieved 7 September 2024. 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.
18. Kyselak, Joseph (1829). Skizzen einer Fußreise durch Oesterreich, Steiermark, Kärnthen, Berchtesgaden, Tirol und Baiern nach Wien [Sketches of a Walking Tour Through Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Tyrol and Bavaria to Vienna] (in German). Vol. 2. Vienna: Pichler. p. 202 – via Munich Digitization Center. Dieser Hanns Steininger mußte das Opfer seiner angestaunten Merkwürdigkeit werden... [This Hanns Steininger had to become the victim of his astonished strangeness...]
19. "Prost, Herr Steininger: Bierkrug des Stadthauptmanns wieder in Braunau" [Cheers, Mr. Steininger: The city captain's beer mug back in Braunau]. Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (in German). 20 May 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2024. "...Es dürfte sich aber bei all diesen seltsamen Erzählungen mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit um Volkssagen handeln", resümieren Manfred und Tamara Rachbauer. ["...But all these strange tales are most likely folk tales," Manfred and Tamara Rachbauer conclude.]
20. Bryant, Charles W. (9 March 2009). "10 Bizarre Ways to Die". Death & Dying. HowStuffWorks. Archived from the original on 17 February 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
21. Norwich, John Julius (1982). A History of Venice. New York: Vintage Books. p. 479. ISBN 0679721975.
22. Madden, Thomas F. (2012). Venice : A New History. New York: Viking. p. 334. ISBN 978-0670025428.
23. Webster, John (1677). The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft. London: J.M. p. 245 – via Project Gutenberg. 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...
24. ^ Wanley, Nathaniel; Johnston, William (1806). "Chapter XXVIII: Of the different and unusual Ways by which some Men have come to their Deaths § 7". 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. Vol. 1 (A new ed.). London. pp. 110–117. ASIN B001F3H1XA. LCCN 07003035. OCLC 847968918. OL 7188480M. Retrieved 23 July 2024 – via Internet Archive.
25. "10 Historical Figures Who Died Unusual Deaths". Medieval. History Hit. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
26. Leggett, George. "The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots". The Past Today. The Bristorian. Retrieved 20 November 2024. The execution in itself was an unusual one...
27. Kinnersley, Thomas (1823). A Selection of Sepulchral Curiosities, with a Biographical Sketch on Human Longevity. New York: T. Kinnersley. p. 214 – via Google Books. 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.
28. Thoren (1990, p.468–69)
29. Tierney, John (29 November 2010). "Murder! Intrigue! Astronomers?". Findings. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2010. 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.
30. ^ Paoletti, Gabe (31 July 2019) . Kuroski, John (ed.). "The Strange Deaths Of 16 Historic And Famous Figures". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 8 August 2024. Many of history's most important figures have suffered strange deaths that do not seem to befit their noble legacy.
31. Dreyer, J. L. E. (1890). Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century. Kessinger Publishing. p. 309. ISBN 978-0-7661-8529-6 – via Google Books.
32. Gotfredsen, Edvard (1 January 1955). "Tycho Brahes sidste sygdom og død" [The final illness and death of Tycho Brahe]. Fund og Forskning I Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger (in Danish). 2: 33–38. doi:10.7146/fof.v2i1.41115.
33. Wyner, Lawrence M (5 November 2015). "Urologic Demise of Astronomer Tycho Brahe: A Cosmic Case of Urinary Retention". Urology. 88: 22–35. doi:10.1016/j.urology.2015.10.006. PMID 26548950.

Works cited

• Barber, Richard; Barker, Juliet (1989). Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages. Boydell. pp. 134, 139. ISBN 978-0-85115-470-1.
• Baumgartner, Frederic J (1988). Henry II, King of France, 1547–1559. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822307952.
• Wellman, Kathleen (2013). Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. Yale University Press.

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