• 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 – 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. • 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) • 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. • 1451 • 1 August – A manuscript of
Dante's
Divine Comedy is sold in London. • Sir
Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in
Warwickshire, England, presumed author of the
chivalric tales of ''
Le Morte d'Arthur'', is imprisoned for most of the following decade on multiple charges including violent robbery and
rape. • 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. • 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. • 1453 – Pageant of
Coriolan staged in the piazza of
Milan Cathedral. • 1455 • 23 February –
Johannes Gutenberg completes printing of the
Gutenberg Bible in
Mainz, the first major book printed with movable type in the West, using a
textualis blackletter typeface. • 5 June – French poet
François Villon is implicated in a murder. • 1457 • 14 August – The
Mainz Psalter, the second major book printed with movable type in the West, the first to be wholly finished mechanically (including colour) and the first to carry a printed date, is printed by
Johann Fust and
Peter Schoeffer for the
Elector of Mainz. • The
Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in
Persia is known to be in existence. • 1460 – From about this date,
Matthias Corvinus,
King of Hungary, begins to form the
Bibliotheca Corviniana, Europe's largest secular library. • 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). with printed illustrations,
Ulrich Boner's
Der Edelstein printed by
Albrecht Pfister at
Bamberg in 1461 • 1462: 10 September –
Robert Henryson enrols as a teacher in the recently founded
University of Glasgow in
Scotland. • 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. • 1468 • 31 May – The
Byzantine scholar Cardinal
Basilios Bessarion donates his library to the
Republic of Venice, the foundation of the . • The printers
Johann and Wendelin of Speyer settle in
Venice; their first book published here,
Cicero's
Epistolae ad familiares, appears in 1469. • 1470 •
Johann Heynlin prints the first book in
Paris, the
Epistolae Gasparini of
Gasparinus de Bergamo (d. ), a guide to writing
Latin prose. •
Nicolas Jenson's edition of
Eusebius, published in Venice, is the first book to use a
roman type based on the principles of
typography rather than manuscript. • '''', 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, '''', 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 • 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 ''''. •
Rashi's commentary on the
Torah is the first dated book to be printed in
Hebrew, in
Reggio di Calabria. • (or 1473–74?) –
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye is the first book to be printed in
English, by
William Caxton in
Bruges using his own translation made in 1471. • 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. • First performance of one of
Terence's plays since antiquity,
Andria in
Florence. • 1477 • The first printed edition of
Ptolemy's
Geography (in Latin translation as ) with maps, published in
Bologna, is the first printed book with engraved illustrations and also the first with maps by a known artist, the plates having been engraved by
Taddeo Crivelli of Ferrara (book wrongly dated 1462). • 18 November – Caxton prints
Earl Rivers' translation of
Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first full-length book printed in England on a printing press. 's 1486 edition of
Canterbury Tales • 1478 – In England • William Caxton publishes the first printed copy of
The Canterbury Tales (left unfinished at
Chaucer's death in 1400). • The
Ranworth Antiphoner is presented to St Helen's Church,
Ranworth. • 17 December – First book printed in
Oxford. • 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. • 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. • 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. • 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. ), written in
Valencian and a pioneering example of the
novel in modern Europe. • 1491 (probable date) – Death of English publisher
William Caxton; he is said to have completed his translation of a
Vitae Patrum on the last day of his life. • 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 • 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
vernacular playwright 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==