16th century in literature

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See also: 16th century in poetry, 15th century in literature, other events of the 16th century, 17th century in literature, list of years in literature.

Further information: Early Modern literature and Renaissance literature

Events

1508

• • April 4 - John Lydgate's The Complaint of the Black Knight becomes the first book printed in Scotland.
  • The earliest known printed edition of the chivalric romance Amadis de Gaula, as edited and expanded by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, is published in Castilian at Zaragoza.
  • Elia Levita completes writing the Bovo-Bukh.

1510

• • April 10 - Henry Cornelius Agrippa pens the dedication of De occulta philosophia libri tres to Johannes Trithemius.

1513

• • Johannes Potken publishes the first Ge'ez text, Psalterium David et Cantica aliqua, at Rome.

1515

• • Paolo Ricci translates Sha'are Orah by Joseph Gikatilla as Portae lucis.

1519

• • Apokopos by Bergadis, the first book in Modern Greek is printed in Venice.

1530

• • Paracelsus finishes writing Paragranum.

1537

• • Paracelsus starts to write Astronomia Magna or the whole Philosophia Sagax of the Great and Little World".

1538

• • Paracelsus finishes writing Astronomia Magna or the whole Philosophia Sagax of the Great and Little World".

1539

• • Marie Dentière writes an open letter to Marguerite of Navarre, sister of the King of France; the Epistre tres utile, or "very useful letter", calls for an expulsion of Catholic clergy from France.

1541

• • Elia Levita's chivalric romance, the Bovo-Bukh, is first printed, the earliest published secular work in Yiddish.

1551

• • An edition of the Book of Common Prayer becomes the first book printed in Ireland.

1565

• • Torquato Tasso enters the service of Cardinal Luigi d'Este at Ferrara.

1567

• • October 14 - António Ferreira becomes Desembargador da Casa do Civel and leaves Coimbra for Lisbon.

1571

• • Michel de Montaigne retires from public life and isolates himself in the tower of the Château de Montaigne.

1572

• • English law eliminates actors' companies lacking formal patronage, by labelling them "vagabonds".

1575

• • Sir Philip Sidney meets Penelope Devereaux, the inspiration for his Astrophel and Stella.

1576

• • December - James Burbage builds The Theatre, the first permanent public playhouse in London, opening the great age of Elizabethan drama.

1590

• • A troupe of boy actors, the Children of Paul's, are suppressed because of their playwright John Lyly's role in the Marprelate controversy.

1596

• • Blackfriars Theatre opens in London.

1597

• • Ben Jonson is briefly jailed in Marshalsea Prison, after the suppression of his play, The Isle of Dogs.

1598

• • September 22 - Ben Jonson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel; he is convicted of manslaughter and imprisoned in Newgate Prison.
  • December 28 - The Theatre is dismantled and the materials used to begin building the Globe Theatre in London.

New books

1501

• • The Book of Margery Kempe (posthumous)
  • Marko Marulić - Judita

1503

• • William Dunbar - The Thrissill and the Rois

1505

• • Georges Chastellain - Récollections des merveilles advenues en mon temps (posthumous)
  • Stephen Hawes
    • The Passtyme of Pleasure
    • The Temple of Glass
  • Lodovico Lazzarelli - Crater Hermetics (posthumous).

1508

• • Johannes Trithemius - De septem secundeis.
  • William Dunbar - The Goldyn Targe

1509

• • Erasmus - In Praise of Folly

1510

• • Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo - Las sergas de Esplandián
  • Ruiz Paez de Ribera - Florisando

1512

• • Henry Medwall - Fulgens and Lucrece
  • Huldrych Zwingli - De Gestis inter Gallos et Helvetios relatio

1513

• • First translation of Virgil's Aeneid into English language (Scots dialect) by Gavin Douglas

1514-15

• • Gian Giorgio Trissino - Sofonisba

1515

• • Robert Fabyan - The New Chronicles of England and France

1516

• • Henry Cornelius Agrippa
    • Dialogus de homine (Casale)
    • De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum
  • Marsilio Ficino - De triplici vita.
  • Thomas More - Utopia.

1517

• • Francysk Skaryna's Bible translation and printing
  • Teofilo Folengo's Baldo, a popular Italian work of comedy.

1518

• • Henry Cornelius Agrippa - De originali peccato

1524

• • Philippe de Commines - Mémoires (Part 1: Books 1-6); first publication (Paris)

1525

• • Francesco Giorgi - De harmonia mundi totius
  • Paracelsus - De septem puncti idolotriae christianae.

1526

• • William Tyndale's New Testament translation

1527

• • Hector Boece - Historia Scotorum
  • Philippe de Commines - Mémoires (Part 2: Books 7-8); first publication

1528

• • Baltissare Castiglione - The Book of the Courtier

1531

• • Michael Servetus - De trinitatis erroribus ("On the Errors of the Trinity")
  • Henry Cornelius Agrippa - Book One of De occulta philosophia libri tres
  • Paracelsus - Opus Paramirum (written in St. Gallen).

1532

• • Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince
  • François Rabelais - Pantagruel
  • Feliciano de Silva - Don Florisel de Niquea

1533

• • Henry Cornelius Agrippa - Books Two and Three of De occulta philosophia libri tres

1534

• • Martin Luther's Bible translation
  • François Rabelais - Gargantua
  • Polydore Vergil - Historia Anglica

1535

• • John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners - Huon of Bordeaux

1536

• • John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion (in Latin)
  • Paracelsus - Die große Wundarzney.

1538

• • Hélisenne de Crenne - Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procèdent d'amours

1539

• • Sir Thomas Elyot - The Castel of Helth

1540

• • Historia Scotorum of Hector Boece, translated into vernacular Scots by John Bellenden at the special request of James V of Scotland
  • The Byrth of Mankynde; the first printed book in English on obstetrics, and one of the first published in England to include engraved plates.

1541

• • George Buchanan
    • Baptistes
    • Jephtha
  • Joachim Sterck van Ringelbergh - Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia

1542

• • Paul Fagius - Liber Fidei seu Veritatis
  • Edward Hall - The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Famelies of Lancastre & Yorke

1543

• • Nicolaus Copernicus - De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres)
  • Andreas Vesalius - De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the Fabric of the Human body in Seven Books)

1544

• • Cardinal John Fisher - Psalmi seu precationes (posthumous) in an anonymous English translation by its sponsor, Queen Katherine Parr

1545

• • Roger Ascham - Toxophilus
  • Bernard Etxepare - Linguae Vasconum Primitiae
  • Sir John Fortescue - De laudibus legum Angliae (written c.1471)
  • Queen Katherine Parr - Prayers or Meditations; the first book published by an English queen under her own name

1546

• • Sir John Prise of Brecon - Yn y lhyvyr hwnn (first book in Welsh; anonymous)
  • François Rabelais - Le tiers livre

1547

• • Gruffudd Hiraethog - Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (posthumous collection of Welsh proverbs made by William Salesbury)
  • Martynas Mažvydas - The Simple Words of Catechism (first printed book in Lithuanian)
  • Queen Katherine Parr - The Lamentation of a Sinner
  • William Salesbury - A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe

1549

• • Johannes Aal - Johannes der Täufer (St. John Baptist)
  • The Complaynt of Scotland

1550

• • Martin Bucer - De regno Christi
  • The Facetious Nights of Straparola published in Italian. The first European storybook to contain fairy-tales.

1552

• • François Rabelais - Le quart livre
  • Gerónimo de Santa Fe - Hebræomastix (posthumous)
  • Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (Little Book of the Medicinal Herbs of the Indians), composed in Nahuatl by Martín de la Cruz and translated into Latin by Juan Badiano.

1553

• • Francesco Patrizi - La Città felice ("The Happy City")

1554

• • anon - Lazarillo de Tormes

1559

• • The Elizabethan version of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, which remains in use until the mid-17th century and becomes the first English Prayer Book in America.
  • Jorge de Montemayor - Diana
  • Pavao Skalić - Encyclopediae seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam profanarum epistemon

1560

• • Jacques Grévin - Jules César
  • William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson - Geneva Bible

1562

• • William Bullein - Bullein's Bulwarke of Defence againste all Sicknes, Sornes, and Woundes

1563

• • John Foxe - Foxe's Book of Martyrs

1564

• • John Dee - Monas Hieroglyphica

1565

• • Camillo Porzio - La Congiura dei baroni

1567

• • Joan Perez de Lazarraga - Silbero, Silbia, Doristeo, and Sirena (MS in Basque)
  • Magdeburg Centuries, vols X-XI
  • William Salesbury - Testament Newydd ein Arglwydd Iesu Christ (translation of New Testament into Welsh)
  • Séon Carsuel, Bishop of the Isles - Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh (translation of Knox's Book of Common Order into Classical Gaelic)

1569

• • Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga - La Araucana, part 1

1571

• • François de Belleforest - La Pyrénée (or La Pastorale amoureuse) (the first French "pastoral novel")
  • Aibidil Gaoidheilge agus Caiticiosma (first printing in Irish)

1572

• • Friedrich Risner - Opticae thesaurus
  • Turba Philosophorum

1576

• • Jean Boudin - Six livres de la République
  • George Pettie - A Petite Palace of Pettie His Pleasure
  • The Paradise of Dainty Devices, the most popular of the Elizabethan verse miscellanies

1577

• • Richard Eden - The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies
  • Thomas Hill - The Gardener's Labyrinth
  • Raphael Holinshed - The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Irelande

1578

• • George Best - A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie…under the Conduct of Martin Frobisher
  • John Florio - First Fruits
  • Jaroš Griemiller - Rosarium philosophorum
  • Gabriel Harvey - Smithus, vel Musarum lachrymae
  • John Lyly - Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit

1579

• • Stephen Gosson - The Schoole of Abuse
  • Thomas Lodge - Honest Excuses

1582

• • George Buchanan - Rerum Scoticarum Historia
  • Richard Hakluyt - Divers Voyages

1583

• • Philip Stubbes - The Anatomy of Abuses

1584

• • James VI of Scotland - Some Reulis and Cautelis
  • David Powel - Historie of Cambria
  • Reginald Scot - The Discovery of Witchcraft

1585

• • Miguel de Cervantes - La Galatea
  • William Davies - Y drych Cristianogawl

1586

• • John Knox - Historie of the Reformatioun of Religioun within the Realms of Scotland
  • John Lyly - Pappe with an hatchet, alias a figge for my Godsonne
  • George Puttenham (attr.) - The Arte of English Poesie
  • Luis Barahona de Soto - Primera parte de la Angélica

1588

• • Thomas Hariot - A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia
  • Thomas Nashe - The Anatomie of Absurditie

1590

• • Thomas Lodge - Rosalynde
  • Thomas Nashe - An Almond for a Parrat

1592

• • Robert Greene - Greene's Groatsworth of Wit
  • Gabriel Harvey - Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets
  • Richard Johnson - Nine Worthies of London

1594

• • Sir John Davys - The Seamans Secrets
  • Richard Hooker - Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

1595

• • Sir Philip Sidney (posthumous) - Defense of Poesy, a.k.a. An Apologie for Poetrie

1596

• • Sir Walter Raleigh - The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empyre of Guiana

1597

• • Francis Bacon Essays

1598

• • John Bodenham - Politeuphuia (Wits' Commonwealth)
  • King James VI of Scotland - The Trew Law of Free Monarchies
  • Francis Meres - Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury
  • John Stow - Survey of London

1599

• • John Bodenham - Wits' Theater

New drama

1508

• • The World and the Child, also known as Mundas et Infans (probable date of composition)

1536

• • Hans Ackermann - Der Verlorene Sohn

1541

• • Giovanni Battista Giraldi - Orbecche

1551

• • Marin Držić - Dundo Maroje

1553

• • (about 1553) – Gammer Gurton's Needle and Ralph Roister Doister, the first comedies written in the English language
  • António Ferreira - Bristo

1562

• • Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville - Gorboduc
  • Jack Juggler - anonymous, sometimes attributed to Nicholas Udall

1566

• • George Gascoigne - Supposes

1567

• • John Pickering - Horestes

1568

• • Ulpian Fulwell - Like Will to Like

1573

• • Torquato Tasso - Aminta

1582

• • Giovanni Battista Guarini - Il pastor fido

1584

• • John Lyly
    • Campaspe
    • Sapho and Phao
  • George Peele - The Arraignment of Paris
  • Robert Wilson - The Three Ladies of London (published)

1588

• • George Peele - The Battle of Alcazar (performed)

1589

• • The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune - anonymous (published)

1590

• • Christopher Marlowe - Tamburlaine (both parts published)
  • George Peele - Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First
  • Robert Wilson - The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (published)

1591

• • John Lyly - Endymion (published)
  • The Troublesome Reign of King John - Anonymous (published)

1592

• • Thomas Kyd - The Spanish Tragedy (published)
  • William Shakespeare - Henry VI, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
  • Arden of Faversham - anonymous (previously attributed to Shakespeare)

1594

• • Samuel Daniel - Cleopatra
  • Robert Greene
    • Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (published)
    • Orlando Furioso (published)
  • Thomas Lodge & Robert Greene - A Looking Glass for London (published)
  • Lope de Vega - El maestro de danzar - (The Dancing Master)
  • George Peele - The Battle of Alcazar (published)
  • William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet
  • Robert Wilson - The Cobbler's Prophecy (published)

1595

• • Locrine - Anonymous (published)

1597

• • The Isle of Dogs - Thomas Nashe & Ben Jonson
  • Richard II - William Shakespeare (published)

1598

• • Robert Greene - The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth (published)
  • Ben Jonson - Every Man in His Humour

1599

• • Thomas Dekker - The Shoemaker's Holiday
  • Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton - Patient Grissel
  • Ben Jonson - Every Man Out of His Humour
  • William Shakespeare - Henry V

New poetry

1514

• • The Aeneid -Francesco Maria Molzo's translation into Italian, in consecutive unrhymed verse (forerunner of Blank verse)

1550

• • Sir Thomas Wyatt - Pentential Psalms

1557

• • Giovanni Battista Giraldi - Ercole
  • Tottel's Miscellany

1562

• • The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet - Arthur Brooke

1563

• • Barnaby Googe - Eclogues, Epitaphs, and Sonnets

1567

• • George Turberville - Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets

1573

• • George Gascoigne - A Hundred Sundry Flowers

1575

• • Nicholas Breton - A Small Handful of Fragrant Flowers
  • George Gascoigne - The Posies

1576

• • The Paradise of Dainty Devices, the most popular of the Elizabethan verse miscellanies

1577

• • Nicholas Breton - The Works of a Young Wit and A Flourish upon Fancy

1579

• • Edmund Spenser - The Shepherd's Calendar

1582

• • Thomas Watson - Hekatompathia or Passionate Century of Love

1590

• • Sir Philip Sidney - Arcadia
  • Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene, Books 1-3

1591

• • Sir Philip Sidney - Astrophel and Stella (published posthumously)

1592

• • Henry Constable - Diana

1593

• Michael Drayton - The Shepherd's Garland
  • Giles Fletcher, the Elder - Licia

1594

• • Michael Drayton - Peirs Gaveston

1595

• • Thomas Campion - *Poemata

1596

• • Sir John Davies - Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing
  • Michael Drayton - The Civell Warres of Edward the Second and the Barrons
  • Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene, Books 1-6

1597

• • Michael Drayton - Englands Heroicall Epistles

1598

• • Lope de Vega
    • La Arcadia
    • La Dragontea

1599

• • Sir John Davies
    • Hymnes of Astraea
    • Nosce Teipsum
  • George Peele - The Love of King David and Faire Bethsabe

Births

• 1503 - Thomas Wyatt
• 1508 - Primož Trubar, author of the first printed books in the Slovene language (d. 1586)
• 1510 - Martynas Mažvydas
• 1511 - Johannes Secundus (d. 1535)
• 1514 - Daniele Barbaro (d. 1570)
• 1515 - Roger Ascham
• 1517 - Henry Howard
• 1524 - Luís de Camões (d. 1580)
• 1547 - Miguel de Cervantes (d. 1616)
• 1551 - William Camden
• 1554 - Philip Sidney
• 1555 - Lancelot Andrewes
• 1558 - Robert Greene
• 1558 - Thomas Kyd
• 1561 - Luís de Góngora y Argote, Spanish poet (d. 1627)
• 1562 - Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and dramatist (d. 1635)
• 1564 - Henry Chettle, English dramatist (d. 1607)
• 1564 - Christopher Marlowe, English poet and dramatist (d. 1593)
• 1564 - William Shakespeare, English poet and dramatist (d. 1616)
• 1570 - Robert Aytoun
• 1572 - Ben Jonson
• 1576 - John Marston
• 1577 - Robert Burton
• 1581 - Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft
• 1583 - Philip Massinger
• 1587 - Joost van den Vondel
• 1594 - James Howell

Deaths

• 1502 - Henry Medwall
• 1513 - Robert Fabyan
• 1519 - Anna Bülow
• 1535 - Johannes Secundus (b. 1511)
• 1542 - Thomas Wyatt
• 1552 - Alexander Barclay
• 1553 - Hanibal Lucić, Croatian poet and playwright (born c. 1485)
• 1553 - François Rabelais
• 1555 - Polydore Vergil
• 1563 - John Bale
• 1563 - Martynas Mažvydas
• 1566 - Marco Girolamo Vida, Italian poet (b. 1485?)
• 1568 - Roger Ascham
• 1570 - Daniele Barbaro (b. 1514)
• 1577 - George Gascoigne
• 1586 - Primož Trubar, author of the first printed books in the Slovene language (b. 1508)
• 1592 - Robert Greene
• 1593 - Christopher Marlowe
• 1594 - Thomas Kyd
• 1595 - Luis Barahona de Soto

See also

• 16th century in poetry