- Feb 10 Joost Sybrantsz Buyck, Amsterdam merchant/regent, dies at about 82
- Feb 24 Johann Weyer, Dutch physician and occultist
- Mar 10 Theodor Zwinger, Swiss physician and scholar, dies at 54
- Mar 17 Petrus Dathenus, Flemish minister/physician (Psalms of David), dies
- Apr 4 Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway (1559-88), dies at 53
- Apr 19 Paolo Veronese (Cagliari), painter, dies
- Jun 10 Valentin Weigel, German mystic, dies
- Jun 18 Anna van Nassau, daughter of William the Silent and his second wife, Anna of Saxony and wife of William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, dies at 24
- Jun 18 Robert Crowley, English printer and poet
- Jul 17 Mimar Sinan, Ottoman architect and civil engineer for Sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III, dies at 99
- Aug 8 Alonso Sánchez Coello, Spanish painter
- Aug 12 Alfonso Ferrabosco, Italian composer who brought madrigal music to England, dies at 45
- Sep 4 Robert Dudley, English Earl of Leicester, favourite of Elizabeth I, dies at 87
- Oct 1 Blessed Edward James, Catholic martyr and priest, executed (beatified 1929)
- Oct 2 Bernardino Telesio, Italian philosopher (Rerum in Child), dies
- Nov 1 Jean Daurat, French poet (b. 1508)
- Nov 2 Wilhelmus Damasi, theologist/1st bishop of Roermond, dies at 63
- Dec 23 Hendrik de Guise, French leader of Catholic League, murdered at 37