- Jan 4 Hosokawa Ujitsuna, Japanese military commander (b. 1514)
Michelangelo
Feb 18 Michelangelo, Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance (David, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), dies at 88
- May 2 Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, Italian humanist (b. 1500)
John Calvin
May 27 John Calvin [Jehan Cauvin], Protestant religious reformer and theologian (Calvinism), dies at 54 (b. 1509)
Andreas Vesalius
Oct 2 Andreas Vesalius [Andries van Wesel], Flemish physician and anatomist (De humani corporis fabrica), dies after being shipwrecked at 49
- Oct 3 Christophorus Fabritius [Christoffel Smit], calvinist vicar, burned
- Oct 4 Pietro P Vergerio, Italian theologist/bishop of Croatia, dies
- Oct 5 Pierre de Manchicourt, Flemish composer, dies at about 54 [birth date uncertain]
- Oct 18 Johannes Acronius Frisius, German physician and mathematician (b. 1520)