1508 in literature

Title page of the earliest known edition of Amadís de Gaula, 1508, in the British Library. The text was written in the fifteenth century.

Template:Year nav topic5 Template:Use British English This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1508.

Events

• April 4 – John Lydgate's poem The Complaint of the Black Knight becomes the first book printed in Scotland, from the Chepman and Myllar Press in Edinburgh.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• unknown date
  • The earliest known printed edition of the chivalric romance Amadis de Gaula, as edited and expanded by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (died c. 1505), is published in Castilian at Zaragoza.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Elia Levita completes writing the Bovo-Bukh in Yiddish.
  • Estimated date of Manuscript D of Leonardo da Vinci's treatise on painting.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

New books

Prose

• Desiderius Erasmus – Adagiorum chiliades (2nd ed., Venice)
• Johannes Trithemius – De septem secundeis<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Drama

• Ludovico Ariosto – La Cassaria<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The World and the Child (possible date)

Poetry

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• William Dunbar
  • The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, and Other Poems
  • The Goldyn Targe

Births

• April 3 – Jean Daurat (or Dorat), French poet and scholar, member of La Pléiade (died 1588)
• April 23 – Georg Sabinus, German poet, diplomat and academic (died 1560)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• June 13 – Alessandro Piccolomini, Italian humanist philosopher, translator and playwright (died 1579)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• December 21 – Thomas Naogeorgus, German Protestant reformer and Latin-language playwright (died 1563)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Unknown dates
  • Marin Držić, Croatian dramatist, author and poet (died 1567)
  • Isabel de Josa, Catalan writer (died 1575)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
  • Primož Trubar, Slovene Protestant reformer, pioneer of Slovenian written language (died 1586)

Deaths

• February 4 – Conrad Celtes, German and Latin-language poet (born 1459)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• May 13 – Martial d'Auvergne, French poet (born 1420)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• June 6 – Ercole Strozzi, Italian poet, murdered (born 1471)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• August 27 – Hieronymus Münzer, co-author of the Nuremberg Chronicle (born 1437/47)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>