16th century in literature

This article presents lists of literary events and publications in the 16th century.

Events

1501
**Italic type (cut by Francesco Griffo) is first used by Aldus Manutius at the Aldine Press in Venice, in an octavo edition of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. He also publishes an edition of Petrarch's ''Le cose volgari'' and first adopts his dolphin and anchor device.
1502
**Aldine Press editions appear of Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', Herodotus's ''Histories'' and Sophocles.
1507
**King James IV grants a patent for the first printing press in Scotland to Walter Chapman and Andrew Myllar.
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''.
1509
**Desiderius Erasmus writes ''The Praise of Folly'' while staying with Thomas More in England.
1510
**April 10 – Henry Cornelius Agrippa pens the dedication of ''De occulta philosophia libri tres'' to Johannes Trithemius.
1510–1511
**''Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dyl Ulenspiegel, geboren uß dem Land zu Brunßwick, wie er sein leben volbracht hat …'' is published by printer in Strassburg in Early New High German, the first appearance of the trickster character Till Eulenspiegel in print.
1512
**The word "masque" is first used to denote a poetic drama.
1513
**The Aldine Press ''editiones principes'' of Lycophron, Lysias, Pindar and Plato is published by Aldus Manutius in Venice.
**Niccolò Machiavelli is banished from Florence by the House of Medici and writes ''The Prince'' as ''De Principatibus'' (On Principalities) in Tuscany this summer.
** Johannes Potken publishes the first Ge'ez text, ''Psalterium David et Cantica aliqua'', at Rome.
1514
**May 15 – The earliest printed edition of Saxo Grammaticus' 12th-century Scandinavian history ''Gesta Danorum'', edited by Christiern Pedersen from an original found near Lund, is published as ''Danorum Regum heroumque Historiae'' by Jodocus Badius in Paris.
**Gregorio de Gregorii begins printing ''Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i'' (a Christian book of hours), the first known book printed in the Arabic alphabet using movable type. It is falsely assigned in Venice to Fano.
1515
**Christoph Froschauer becomes the first printer in Zürich.
1516
**Samuel Nedivot prints the 14th-century Hebrew '' Sefer Abudirham'' in Fez, the first book printed in Africa.
** Paolo Ricci translates the 13th-century Kabbalistic work ''Sha'are Orah'' by Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla as ''Portae Lucis''.
1519
**'' Apokopos'' by Bergadis, the first book in Modern Greek, is printed in Venice.
**The chivalric romance ''Libro del muy esforzado e invencible caballero Don Claribalte'' (Book of the much striving and invincible knight Don Claribalte), the first work by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, is published in Valencia, Spain, by Juan Viñao. In a foreword dedicating it to Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, Oviedo relates that it has been conceived and written in the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (the Caribbean island of Hispaniola), where he has been working since 1514. It can therefore claim to be the first literary work created in the New World.
1521
**June 29 or 30 – Neacșu's letter is the oldest surviving dateable document written primarily in Romanian (using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet).
1522
**Luo Guanzhong's 14th-century compilation ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' is first printed as ''Sanguozhi Tongsu Yanyi''.
**Luther Bible: Martin Luther's translation of the New Testament into Early New High German from Greek, ''Das newe Testament Deutzsch'', is published.
1522–24
**St Ignatius Loyola writes his Exercitia spiritualia (Spiritual Exercises), on which Jesuit spirituality is based. It is published in 1548 after formal approval by Pope Paul III.
1524
**''Eyn Gespräch von dem gemaynen Schwabacher Kasten'' ("als durch Brüder Hainrich, Knecht Ruprecht, Kemerin, Spüler, und irem Maister, des Handtwercks der Wüllen Tuchmacher") is published in Germany, the first publication in the "Schwabacher" blackletter typeface.
1526
**Spring – The first complete printed translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale arrives in England from Germany, having been printed in Worms. In October, Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, attempts to collect all the copies in his diocese and burn them.
**The New Testament in Swedish, the first official Bible translation into Swedish, is made by Olaus Petri under royal patronage.
**The first complete Dutch-language translation of the Bible is printed by Jacob van Liesvelt.
**The Bibliotheca Corviniana in Ofen is destroyed by troops of the Ottoman Empire.
1530
**January – The first printed translation of the Torah in English, by William Tyndale, is published in Antwerp for distribution in Britain.
**An edition of Erasmus's ''Paraphrasis in Elegantiarum Libros Laurentii Vallae'' is the first book to use the Roman form of the Garamond typeface cut by Claude Garamond.
**Paracelsus finishes writing ''Paragranum''.
1533
**October – The censors of the Collège de Sorbonne condemn François Rabelais' ''Pantagruel'' as obscene.
1534
**Luther Bible: Martin Luther's ''Biblia: das ist die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch'', a translation of the complete Bible into German, is printed by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, with woodcut illustrations.
**Cambridge University Press is granted a royal charter by King Henry VIII of England to print "all manner of books" and so becomes the first of the privileged presses.
**Rabbi Asher Anchel's ''Mirkevet ha-Mishneh'' (a Tanakh