1503 in literature

Events

• August 8 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor in Edinburgh. This is thought to be the occasion for which the Hours of James IV of Scotland was produced, probably in Ghent.
• unknown dates
• *The first English translation of Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ is published.
• *An edition of Euripides' Tragoediae is published.

  New books

• Niccolò Machiavelli
• *A Description of the Manner in which Duke Valentino put Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Lord Pagola and the Duke of Gravina to Death
• *On the method of dealing with the Rebellious Peoples of Valdichiana

  New poetry

• William Dunbar – The Thrissil and the Rois
• Jean Lemaire de Belges – La Plainte du Désiré
• "Robin Hood and the Potter"

  Births

• March 22 – Antonio Francesco Grazzini, Florentine author
• June 28 – Giovanni della Casa, Florentine Latin-language writer on etiquette and poet
• November 17 – Bronzino, born Agnolo di Cosimo, Florentine Mannerist painter and poet
• December 14 – Nostradamus, French apothecary and astrologer
• December 20 – Cosimo Bartoli, Italian diplomat, mathematician, philologist, humanist and translator
• unknown dates
• *Robert Estienne, French printer
• *Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Spanish poet, novelist, historian and diplomat, governor of Granada.
• *Thomas Wyatt, English lyrical poet and diplomat
• probable – Nicholas Bourbon, French court preceptor and poet

  Deaths

• February 14 – Annamacharya, Indian Hindu saint and Telugu poet
• April 26 – Johannes Tolhopff, German astrologist
• September 17 – Iovianus Pontanus, Italian Latin-language humanist and poet
• unknown dates
• *Johann Bämler, German printer, illuminator and bookseller
• probable – Antonio Bonfini, Italian-born humanist historian and poet