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.