This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1523.

• June 9 – Simon de Colines, a Paris printer, is fined for printing Commentarii initiatorii in quatuor Evangelia, a Biblical commentary by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, without approval from the Paris Faculty of Theology.^[1]
• Laurentian Library in Florence commissioned from Michelangelo by the Medici Pope Clement VII.

• Pietro Aron – Thoscanello de la musica
• Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples – Nouveau Testament, translation of the New Testament into French
• Anthony Fitzherbert
  • Diversité de courtz et leur jurisdictions
  • The Boke of Husbandrie
  • The Boke of Surveyinge and Improvements
• Martin Luther
  • Das allte Testament Deutsch, translation of the Pentateuch into German
  • The Adoration of the Sacrament (Vom Anbeten des Sakraments des heiligen leichnams Christi)
• Maximilianus Transylvanus – De Moluccis Insulis, the first published account of the Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation

• Alexander Barclay – The Mirror of Good Manners, translating Dominic Mancini's De quatuor virtutibus (approximate date)^[2]
• Hans Sachs – Die Wittenbergische Nachtigall (The Wittenberg Nightingale)^[3]
• John Skelton – The Garland of Laurel^[2]

• Farsa de Inês Pereira (The Farce of Inez Pereira)^[4]

• February 13 – Valentin Naboth, German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer (died 1593)^[5]
• February 20 – Jan Blahoslav, Czech Christian humanist writer (died 1571)
• March 16 – Antoine Rodolphe Chevallier, French Protestant Hebraist, tutor of Queen Elizabeth I of England (died 1572)
• March 21 – Kaspar Eberhard, German theologian (died 1575)
• unknown date – Girolamo Maggi, Italian polymath (died 1572)

• August 29 – Ulrich von Hutten, German scholar, poet and reformer (born 1488)
• October – William Cornysh, dramatist, poet, actor and composer (born 1465)
• unknown date – Stephen Hawes, English poet (born c. 1474)