15th century in literature Contents

Sermo ad populo predicabilis, a sermon printed in Cologne, is the first book to incorporate printed page numbers.

1473

• 
  First book printed in Hungary, Chronica Hungarorum, the "Buda Chronicle".
  
• 
  First known printing in Poland, Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474, a wall calendar.
  

1474 – First book printed in Spain, Obres e trobes en lahors de la Verge María, the anthology of a religious poetry contest held this year in Valencia.

1475

• 
  February – Pope Sixtus IV appoints the humanist Bartolomeo Platina as Prefect of the newly-re-established Vatican Library(Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) in Rome after Platina has presented him with the manuscript of his Lives of the Popes.^[7]
  
• 
  Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye is the first book to be printed in English, by William Caxton in Bruges.^[8]
  
• 
  Rashi's commentary on the Torah is the first dated book to be printed in Hebrew, in Reggio di Calabria.^[9]
  

1476

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  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.^[8]
  
• 
  First performance of one of Terence's plays since antiquity, Andria in Florence.
  

1477: 18 November – Caxton prints Earl Rivers' translation of Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed in England on a printing press.^[10]


The Pilgrims diverting each other with tales; woodcut from Caxton's 1486 edition of Canterbury Tales

• 
  1478 – In England
  
  • 
    William Caxton publishes the first printed copy of the Canterbury Tales.^[11]
    
  • 
    The Ranworth Antiphoner is presented to St Helen's Church, Ranworth.
    
  • 
    17 December – First book printed in Oxford.^[12]
    
• 
  1479
  
  • 
    The St Albans Press, the third printing press in England, is set up in the Abbey Gateway, St. Albans.
    
  • 
    Robert Ricart begins writing The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar in Bristol, England.
    
• 
  1480s (approximate date) – Scottish makar Robert Henryson writes The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.
  
• 
  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.^[13]
  
• 
  1490
  
  • 
    Chinese scholar Hua Sui invents bronze-metal movable type printing in China.
    
  • 
    Publication in Valencia of the prose chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanch completed by Martí Joan de Galba from the work of the knight Joanot Martorell (d. 1468), written in Valencian and a pioneering example of the novel in modern Europe.
    
• 
  1492 – Antonio de Nebrija publishes Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first grammar text for the Castilian Spanish language 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".
  
• 
  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 in modern times as Bembo) for the Aldine Press edition of Pietro Bembo's narrative Petri Bembi de Aetna Angelum Chabrielem liber, a work which also includes early adoption of the semicolon.
  
• 
  1497
  
  • 
    7 February (Shrove Tuesday) – Followers of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of "immoral" objects, including books, at the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence, an episode repeatedly revisited in literature.
    
  • 
    Possible date – First performance of the earliest known full-length secular play wholly in English, Fulgens and Lucrece by Henry Medwall, the first English vernacularplaywright known by name, perhaps at Lambeth Palace in London.
    
• 
  1499: Late – Contents of the library of the Madrasah of Granada are publicly burned.
  

New works and first printings of older works[edit]

• 
  1400
  
  • 
    Alliterative Morte Arthure
    
  • 
    Shivaganaprasadi Mahadevaiah – Shunyasampadane
    
• 
  c. 1400–1410
  
  • 
    Nicholas Love – The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (translation and adaptation into Middle English of the Meditations on the Life of Christ)
    
• 
  1402
  
  • 
    Christine de Pizan – Dit de la Rose
    
• 
  1402–1403
  
  • 
    Christine de Pizan – Le livre du chemin de long estude
    
• 
  1405
  
  • 
    Christine de Pizan
    
    •