Born on December 10

Agostino Chigi (1466–1520) was the greatest banker of the Italian Renaissance, financier to popes Julius II and Leo X. A lavish patron of the arts, he commissioned the construction and decoration of the Villa Farnesina in Rome, with frescoes by Raphael and his pupils.

British mathematician (1815-1852), pioneer of computing and programming. She wrote the first algorithm intended to be executed by a machine, working on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Her legacy makes her a founding figure of theoretical computer science.

German Jewish poet and playwright, forced into exile in Sweden in 1940 to flee Nazism. Her work, shaped by the Holocaust, earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a French composer, organist and teacher, one of the major figures of 20th-century music. A deeply devout Catholic and a passionate ornithologist, he renewed musical language through his research into rhythm, sound color and birdsong.

Clarice Lispector, born in Ukraine and raised in Brazil, is one of the greatest Portuguese-language writers of the 20th century. Her work, deeply introspective, renews Brazilian prose through a unique poetic and philosophical style.