15th century in literature explained
This article is a list of the literary events and publications in the 15th century.__TOC__
Events
- 1403 – A guild of stationers is founded in the City of London. As the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (the "Stationers' Company"), it continues to be a Livery Company in the 21st century.
- 1403–08 – The Yongle Encyclopedia is written in China.
- –11 – An Leabhar Breac is probably compiled by Murchadh Ó Cuindlis at Duniry in Ireland.
- – John, Duke of Berry, commissions the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, illustrated by the Limbourg brothers between and 1416.
- 1424 – The first French royal library is transferred by the English regent of France, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, to England.
- 1425 – At about this date the first Guildhall Library (probably for theology) is established in the City of London under the will of Richard Whittington.[1]
- 1434 – Japanese Noh actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo is exiled to Sado Island by the Shōgun.
- 1438: 28 April – Completion of Margery Kempe's The Book of Margery Kempe, the first known English autobiography, begins (by dictation) at Bishop's Lynn in England; it will not be published in full until 1940.
- 1442 – Enea Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, arrives at the court of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, in Vienna, who names him imperial poet.
- 1443 – King Sejong the Great establishes Hangul as the native alphabet of Korean. It is first described in the Hunminjeongeum published on 9 October 1446
- 1444: 15 June – Cosimo de' Medici founds a public library at San Marco, Florence, based on the collection of Niccolò de' Niccoli.[2]
- 1448 – Pope Nicholas V founds the Vatican Library in Rome.
- 1450 – Johannes Gutenberg has set up his movable type printing press as a commercial operation in Mainz by this date and a German poem has been printed.[3]
- 1451
- 1452 – Completion of the Malatestiana Library in Cesena (in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, commissioned by the city's ruler Malatesta Novello), the first European public library, in the sense of belonging to the commune and open to all citizens.[5]
- 1452–3 – Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz probably prints the Sibyllenbuch, a poem of about 74 pages, of which only a fragment survives, making it the earliest known remnant of any European book printed using movable type.[6]
- 1453 – Pageant of Coriolan staged in the piazza of Milan Cathedral.
- 1455
- 1457
- 1460 – From about this date, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, begins to form the Bibliotheca Corviniana, Europe's largest secular library.[7]
- 1461 – Albrecht Pfister is pioneering movable type book printing in German and the addition of woodcut illustrations in Bamberg, producing a collection of Ulrich Boner's fables, Der Edelstein, the first book printed with illustrations. Soon after this he prints the first known Biblia pauperum (picture Bible).
- 1462: 10 September – Robert Henryson enrols as a teacher in the recently founded University of Glasgow in Scotland.[8]
- 1462: 8 November – First known sentence written in Albanian, a Formula e pagëzimit (baptismal formula) by Archbishop Pal Engjëlli.
- 1463: 5 January – François Villon is reprieved from hanging in Paris but never heard of again.
- 1465 – Having established the Subiaco Press at Subiaco in the Papal States in 1464, German printers Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim produce an edition of Donatus (lost), a Cicero, De Oratore (September 1465) and Lactantius' De divinis institutionibus (October 1465), followed by Augustine's De civitate Dei in 1467, the first books to be printed in Italy, using a form of Roman type.
- 1467 – German printers Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim move from Subiaco to Rome where the Massimo family place a house at their disposal and they publish an edition of Cicero's letters that gives its name to the typographic unit of measurement the cicero.[9]
- 1468
- 1470
- 1473
- 1474
- First book printed in Spain, Catalan; Valencian: Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge María, the anthology of a religious poetry contest held this year in Valencia.
- Approximate date – Georgius Purbachius (Georg von Peuerbach)'s Theoricae nouae planetarum is published in Nuremberg, an early example of the application of color printing to an academic text.
- 1475
- 1476
- 30 January – Constantine Lascaris's Erotemata ("Questions", also known as Grammatica Graeca) is the first book to be printed entirely in Greek (in Milan).
- William Caxton sets up the first printing press in England, at Westminster.[13] This year he prints improving pamphlets: Stans Puer ad Mensam (John Lydgate's translation of Robert Grosseteste's treatise on table manners, printed together with Salve Regina); The Churl and the Bird and The Horse, the Goose and the Sheep (both by Lydgate); and a parallel text edition of Cato with translation by Benjamin Burgh.[14]
- First performance of one of Terence's plays since antiquity, Andria in Florence.
- 1477
- 1478 – In England
- 1479
- 1480s (approximate date) – Scottish makar Robert Henryson writes The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.
- 1482: 25 January – Probable first printing of the Torah (in Hebrew with vowels and marks of cantillation printed), with paraphrases in Aramaic and Rashi's commentary, printed in Bologna.[21]
- 1483: 22 February – First known book printed in Croatian, the Missale Romanum Glagolitice (Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora), a missal printed in Glagolitic script, edited in Istria and printed in either Venice or in Croatia at Kosinj.
- 1484: 22 June – First known book printed by a woman, Anna Rügerin, an edition of Eike of Repgow's compendium of customary law, the Sachsenspiegel, produced in Augsburg.
- 1485 – The play Elckerlijc wins first prize in the Rederijker contest in Antwerp.
- 1488 – Duke Humfrey's Library at the University of Oxford receives its first books.[22]
- 1490
- 1492: 16 January – Antonio de Nebrija publishes Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar text for Castilian Spanish, in Salamanca, which he introduces to the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, newly restored to power in Andalusia, as "a tool of empire".
- 1494: 17 August – Blaž Baromić completes the first work of his printing press in Senj, Croatia, a glagolithic missal, the second edition of the Missale Romanum.
- 1495: February - March – An edition of Constantine Lascaris's Erotemata in Greek with a parallel Latin translation (Grammatica Graeca) by Johannes Crastonis is the first book to be published by Aldus Manutius, in Venice, using typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo.
- 1495 - 1498 – Aldus Manutius publishes the Aldine Press edition of Aristotle in Venice.
- 1496: February – Francesco Griffo cuts the first old-style serif (or humanist) typeface (known from the 20th century as Bembo) for the Aldine Press edition of Pietro Bembo's narrative Petri Bembi de Aetna Angelum Chabrielem liber ("De Aetna", a description of a journey to Mount Etna) published in Venice, Aldus Manutius' first printing in the Latin alphabet and a work which includes early adoption of the semicolon (dated 1495 according to the more veneto).
- 1497
- 1499: Late – Contents of the library of the Madrasah of Granada are publicly burned.
New works and first printings of older works
- 1400
- - 1410
- 1402
- 1402–1403
- 1405
- 1411
- 1413
- 1418
- 1420s?
- 1420
- 1423
- 1424
- Bhaskara – Jivandhara Charite
- 1425
- Sharafuddin Ali Yazdi – Zafar Nama (history of Timur)
- 1427
- 1429
- 1430
- Kallumathada Prabhudeva – Ganabhasita Ratnamale
- 1434
- Treatise on the Barbarian Kingdoms on the Western Oceans (China)
- Approximate date: John Lydgate – The Life of St. Edmund, King and Martyr
- 1435
- 1436
- The Marvels discovered by the boat bound for the Galaxy (China)
- 1438
- 1439
- Kalyanakirti – Jnanachandrabhyudaya
- 1440
- 1444
- 1447
- 1448
- Vijayanna – Dvadasanuprekshe
- 1450
- 1453
- 1455
- Pre-1460
- 1461
- 1464
- 1467
- Cardinal Juan de Torquemada – Meditationes, seu Contemplationes devotissimae ("Meditations, or the Contemplations of the Most Devout"), the first book printed in Italy to include woodcut illustrations[24]
- 1469/70
- –85
- 1471
- 1472
- 1472 or 1473
- 1473
- 1474
- 1475
- ?
- 1476
- 1477
- 1478
- 1479
- 1480
- 1481
- 1482
- Mosen Diego de Valera – Crónica abreviada de España ("Crónica Valeriana")
- Euclid – Elements (in Latin)
- Hans Tucher der Ältere – Beschreibung der Reyß ins Heylig Land
- 1483
- 1484
- 1485
- 1486
- 1487
- 1488–1489
- 1489
- 1490
- 1491
- 1492
- 1493
- 1494
- 1496
- 1497
- 1497–1504
- 1498
- 1499
- Undated
Drama
- - 1475
- Probable date of composition of the "N-Town Plays" in The Midlands of England
- 1470
- 1492
- 1493
- c.1497
- Approximate date of composition
Births
- Early 15th c. – Henry Lovelich, English poet and translator from London
- 1405: 18 October – Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Italian erotic poet and novelist, later Pope Pius II (died 1464)[31]
- 1406 – Matteo Palmieri, Florentine humanist and historian (died 1475)
- 1413 – Giosafat Barbaro, Venetian travel writer (died 1494)
- c. 1426 – Bhalan, Indian Gujarati-language poet (died c. 1500)
- 1432 – Ōta Dōkan (太田 道灌, Ōta Sukenaga), Japanese samurai warrior-poet and Buddhist monk (died 1486)
- 1434: 29 August – Janus Pannonius, Hungarian/Croatian poet and bishop writing in Latin (died 1472)
- c. 1435 – Johannes Tinctoris (Jehan le Teinturier), Low Countries' writer on music and musician (died 1511)
- 1441: 9 February – Ali-Shir Nava'i, Chagatai Turkic-language Timurid poet and scholar (died 1501)
- c. 1441 – Felix Fabri (Felix Faber), Swiss Dominican theologian and travel writer (died 1502)
- 1449 – Aldus Manutius, Italian publisher (died 1515)
- c. 1451 – Richard Methley, English Dominican writer and translator (died 1527 or 1528)
- 1453 – Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (died 1493)
- c. 1460 – John Skelton, English poet (died 1529)
- 1462: 8 September – Henry Medwall, English playwright and ecclesiastical lawyer (died c. 1501/2?)[32]
- 1465 – Yamazaki Sōkan (山崎宗鑑, Shina Norishige), Japanese poet (died 1553)
- 1470: 20 May – Pietro Bembo, Venetian-born scholar, poet and cardinal (died 1547)
- c. 1473 – Jean Lemaire de Belges, Walloon French poet and historian (died c. 1525)
- 1475 – Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi, Italian calligrapher and type designer (died 1527)
- 1483: 6 March – Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian and statesman
- 1483: 19 April – Paolo Giovio, Italian contemporary historian, bishop and scientist (died 1552)
- 1485 – Hanibal Lucić, Croatian poet and playwright (died 1553)
- 1486: 28 July – Pieter Gillis, Flemish humanist, printer and Antwerp city official (died 1533)
- 1488: c. 24 August – Ferdinand Columbus, Spanish bibliophile (died 1539)
- 1488: (estimated) – Otto Brunfels, German botanist and theologian (died 1534)
- 1490: Gáspár Heltai (Kaspar Helth), Transylvanian writer in German (died 1574)
- 1492: 11 April – Marguerite de Navarre, princess of France, queen consort, writer, religious reformer and patron of the arts (died 1549)
- 1494: November (probable) – François Rabelais, French writer (died 1553)
- 1496: 23 November – Clément Marot, French poet (died 1544)
- 1497 – Edward Hall, English historian, politician and lawyer (died 1547)
Deaths
- 1400 – Jan of Jenštejn, archbishop of Prague, writer, composer and poet (born 1348)
- 1406: 19 March – Ibn Khaldun, North African historiographer and philosopher (born 1332)
- c. 1416 – Julian of Norwich, English religious writer and mystic (born c. 1342)
- 1426 – Thomas Hoccleve, English poet and clerk (born c. 1368)
- c. 1426 – John Audelay, English poet and priest (year of birth unknown)
- c. 1430 – Christine de Pizan, French poet and author of conduct books (born 1364)
- c. 1440 – Margery Kempe, English mystic and autobiographer (born c. 1373)
- c. 1443 – Zeami Motokiyo (世阿弥 元清), Japanese Noh actor and playwright (born c. 1363)
- 1448 – Zhu Quan (朱|權), Prince of Ning, Chinese military commander, feudal lord, historian and playwright (born 1378)
- c. 1451 – John Lydgate, English poet and monk (born c. 1370)
- 1454 – Francesco Barbaro, Italian humanist and politician (born 1390)
- 1458 – Íñigo López de Mendoza, 1st Marquis of Santillana, Castilian politician and poet (born 1398)
- 1459 - Ausiàs March, Valencian poet and knight (born 1400)
- 1464:
- 1468 – Joanot Martorell, Valencian novelist and knight (born 1413)
- 1471 – Sir Thomas Malory, presumed English writer (year of birth unknown)
- 1472: 27 March – Janus Pannonius, Hungarian/Croatian poet and bishop writing in Latin (born 1434)[33]
- 1475 – Matteo Palmieri, Florentine historian and humanist (born 1406)
- c. 1483 – Richard Holland, Scottish cleric and poet
- 1486 – Margareta Clausdotter, Swedish chronicler and nun
- c. 1490 – Lewys Glyn Cothi, Welsh poet (born 1420)
- 1492 – Jami, Persian poet and scholar (born 1414)
- 1493 – Ermolao Barbaro, Italian scholar (born 1453)
- 1494 – Giosafat Barbaro, Italian travel writer, diplomat and explorer (born 1413)
- 1496: 28 August – Kanutus Johannis, Swedish Franciscan friar, writer and book collector
See also
Notes and References
- Web site: History of Guildhall Library. City of London. 2014-04-07. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140405044034/http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visiting-the-city/archives-and-city-history/guildhall-library/Pages/History-of-Guildhall-Library.aspx. 5 April 2014.
- Web site: Foundation of the Library of the Dominican Convent of San Marco, the First "Public" Library in Renaissance Europe. Jeremy M.. Norman. HistoryofInformation.com. 2022-12-20. 2023-01-18.
- Book: Klooster, John W. . Icons of invention: the makers of the modern world from Gutenberg to Gates . 2009 . ABC-CLIO . Santa Barbara, CA . 978-0-313-34745-0 . 8.
- [Berlin State Library]
- Web site: Biblioteca Malatestiana . https://web.archive.org/web/20021216160627/http://www.malatestiana.it/ . dead . 2002-12-16 . Istituzione Biblioteca Malatestiana . it . 2014-01-17 .
- .
- Book: Csapodi. Csaba. Csapodiné Gárdonyi. Klára. Bibliotheca Corviniana. Budapest. 1976.
- The University of Glasgow, Munimenta, II, 69, dated 10 September 1462, admits a Robert Henryson, licenciate in Arts and bachelor of Decreits (Canon Law), as a member of the University. It is considered strongly likely, from secondary evidence, that this was the poet.
- Book: Elsevier's Dictionary of the Printing and Allied Industries. 2nd. https://books.google.com/books?id=VQghBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA125. 2827 cicero. 978-0-444-42249-1. Wijnekus . F. J. M. . Wijnekus . E. F. P. H. . 22 October 2013 . Elsevier .
- Book: Robinson, Anton Meredith Lewin . From monolith to microfilm: the story of the recorded word . 1979 . South African Library . Cape Town . 0-86968-020-X . 2 5. 14 June 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20111002024303/http://edupals.wcape.gov.za/cgi-bin/pals-cgi?SET%20WEB%20ECCCAT____%2FBF%20%20%20CA%20686.2POW%2Fse%20%20%2010 . 2 October 2011 . dead.
- Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX (published 1479). The event is depicted in Melozzo da Forlì's fresco for the library Sixtus IV Appointing Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library (1477). Kenneth M. . Setton . From Medieval to Modern Library . Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 104. 1960 . 371–390.
- Web site: The Earliest Printed Book in Hebrew. Menachem. Mendel. 2007. 2011-12-09. 2019-10-11. https://web.archive.org/web/20191011090452/https://menachemmendel.net/blog/the-earliest-printed-book-in-hebrew/. dead.
- Book: Williams, Hywel . Cassell's Chronology of World History . London . Weidenfeld & Nicolson . 2005 . 0-304-35730-8 . 185–187 .
- Book: Hellinga, Lotte. Lotte Hellinga
. Lotte Hellinga. Caxton in Focus: The Beginning of Printing in England. London. British Library. 1982. 0904654761. 68, 83.
- Book: Landau. David. Parshall. Peter. The Renaissance Print. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1996. 241–242. 978-0-300-06883-2.
- Crone. G. R.. Review of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum: A Series of Atlases in Facsimile. The Geographical Journal. 130. 4. December 1964. 577–578. 10.2307/1792324. 1792324.
- Book: Lone, E. Miriam. Some Noteworthy Firsts in Europe during the Fifteenth Century. New York. Harper. 1930. 41.
- Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library . 0-14-102715-0 . 2006.
- Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 0-7126-5616-2.
- Commentarius in symbolum apostolorum, a 4th century exposition of the Apostles' Creed attributed to St. Jerome but actually by Tyrannius Rufinus, perhaps printed by Theoderic Rood, and apparently misdated 1468.Web site: Printing in universities: the Sorbonne Press and Oxford. John Rylands University Library. Manchester. 2012-03-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714224703/http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/firstimpressions/assets/downloads/10-Printing-in-universities-the-Sorbonne-Press-and-Oxford.pdf. 14 July 2015. live.
- Web site: Sale 3587: Importants livres anciens, livres d'artistes et manuscrits. Lot 36: Bible, Pentateuch, in Hebrew - Hamishah humshe Torah, with paraphrase in Aramaic (Targum Onkelos) and commentary by Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac). Edited by Joseph Hayim ben Aaron Strasbourg Zarfati. Bologna: Abraham ben Hayim of Pesaro for Joseph ben Abraham Caravita, 5 Adar I [5] 242 = 25 January 1482]. Christie's. Paris. 2020-08-28.
- Book: Gillam, Stanley. The Divinity School and Duke Humfrey's Library at Oxford. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1988. 0-19-951558-1. 28.
- Web site: Old Master & British paintings Evening Sale including three Renaissance Masterworks from Chatsworth. 51: Louis de Gruuthuse's copy of the Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands (Antwerp or perhaps Bruges), dated 1464]]. Sotheby's. London. 2019-10-07.
- Web site: Illustrated Books . . 2014-12-02 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120601041517/http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/guidetospecialcollections/atoz/illustratedbooks/. 1 June 2012.
- Book: Kleinhenz, Christopher . Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia . 1 . Routledge . 2004 . 0-415-93930-5 . 360.
- Book: Biddick, Kathleen. 2013. The Typological Imaginary: Circumcision, Technology, History. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press. 48. 9780812201277.
- Web site: William M. . Ivins . The Herbal of 'Pseudo-Apuleius' . Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York. 2014-12-02.
- Book: Jacobus (de Vorágine). The Golden Legend. 2012-11-16. 1973. CUP Archive. 8–. GGKEY:DE1HSY5K6AF.
- Book: Martin, Joanna . Kingship and Love in Scottish poetry, 1424-1540 . Aldershot . Ashgate . 2008 . 978-0-7546-6273-0 . 111.
- .
- Book: John Flood. Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire: A Bio-bibliographical Handbook. 8 September 2011. Walter de Gruyter. 978-3-11-091274-6. 1531.
- Alan H.. Nelson. Medwall, Henry (b. 1462, d. after 1501). 2004. 2015-07-27. 10.1093/ref:odnb/18504.
- Book: Milorad Živančević . Živan Milisavac . 1971 . Jugoslovenski književni leksikon . Yugoslav Literary Lexicon . . sh . Novi Sad (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia) . 70 .