1544 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1544.

Events

• Summer – The engraver and publisher Cornelis Bos relocates from Antwerp to Paris, after becoming involved with an antisacerdotalist, free-thinking spiritualist sect. In his absence, he is declared to be exiled by the Council of Brabant.^[1]
• December 31 – Eleven-year-old Princess Elizabeth of England presents her stepmother, Catherine Parr, with a manuscript book entitled The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul.^[2]
• unknown dates
  • The University of Paris prohibits the printing of any book not approved by the appropriate University officials.^[3]
  • The first (partial) Latin translation of Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon, made by Annibal della Croce (Crucejus), is published in Lyon.

New books

Prose

• Cardinal John Fisher – Psalmi seu precationes (posthumous) in an anonymous English translation by its sponsor, Catherine Parr, queen of King Henry VIII of England
• John Leland – Assertio inclytissimi Arturii regis Britanniae
• Sebastian Münster – Cosmographia
• Guillaume Postel – De orbis terrae concordia
• Domingo de Vico – Los Proverbios de Salomón, las Epístolas y los Evangelios de todo el año, en lengua mexicana ("The Proverbs of Solomon, the Epistles and Gospels for the whole year, in the Mexican tongue"; later prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition)^[4]
• Sefer HaYashar, printed in Venice
• Michael Stifel – Arithmetica integra
• Tripartito del Christianissimo y consolatorio doctor Juan Gerson, the first Mexican book with woodcut illustrations, published by Juan Pablos.^[5]
• William Turner – Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia (Brief and Succinct Account of Chief Birds Mentioned by Pliny and Aristotle; first English book devoted wholly to birds)
• Vidus Vidius – Chirurgia^[6]

Poetry

• See also 1544 in poetry
• Clément Marot – Œuvres (definitive edition)

Births

• May 24 – William Gilbert, astronomer and natural philosopher (died 1603)

Deaths

• September 12 – Clément Marot, French poet (born 1496)
• December – Denis Janot, French printer
• Unknown dates
  • Pedro Damiano, Portuguese chess player and writer (born 1480)
  • Nilakantha Somayaji, Keralan mathematician and astronomer (born 1444)

Notes and References

1. "Cornelis Willem, Claussone, van sHertogenbossche figuersnyder in copper" (Peter van der Coelen, "Cornelis Bos: Where Did He Go? Some New Discoveries and Hypotheses about a Sixteenth-Century Engraver and Publisher", Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 23.2/3 [1995:119-146] p. 119 note 3).
2. Davenport, Cyril. English Embroidered Bookbindings, Chapter 2, from Project Gutenberg.http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17585/17585-h/17585-h.htm Accessed 21 January 2008.
3. Book: Pottinger, David T. . The French Book Trade in the Ancien Regime, 1500–1791 . registration . Cambridge, Massachusetts . Harvard University Press . 1958 . 57.
4. Book: Alexander S. Wilkinson. Iberian Books / Libros ibéricos (IB): Books Published in Spanish or Portuguese or on the Iberian Peninsula before 1601 / Libros publicados en español o portugués o en la Península Ibérica antes de 1601. 17 May 2010. BRILL. 978-90-04-19341-3. 74.
5. Book: John Carter Brown. Bibliotheca Americana: A Catalogue of Books Relating to North and South America in the Library of the Late John Carter Brown of Providence, R. I.. 1875. H.O. Houghton, Cambridge. 132.
6. Tubbs, R. S. . Salter, E. G. . Vidius Vidius (Guido Guidi): 1509-1569 . . 59 . 1 . 201–3; discussion 201–3 . 2006 . 16823317 . 10.1227/01.NEU.0000219238.52858.47.