The year 1588 in science and technology, Armada year, included a number of events, some of which are listed here.

• Tycho Brahe publishes De mundi aetheri recentioribus phaenomenis in Uraniborg.
• Giovanni Paolo Gallucci publishes his star atlas Theatrum Mundi et Temporis (Theater of the world and time).^[1]

• October 7 – The first biography of Nicolaus Copernicus (died 1543) is completed by Bernardino Baldi.

• Pietro Cataldi discovers the sixth and seventh Mersenne primes by this year.^[2]
• Giovanni Antonio Magini is chosen over Galileo to occupy the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna after the death of Egnatio Danti.
• Ferdinando I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, appoints Galileo to the professorship of mathematics at the University of Pisa.

• Joachim Camerarius the younger publishes Hortus medicus.^[3]
• Thomas Muffet publishes Nosomantica Hippocratea.

• Agostino Ramelli publishes Le diverse et artificiose Machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli, Dal Ponte Della Tresia Ingegniero del Christianissimo Re di Francia et di Pollonia in Paris.

• May 2 – Étienne Pascal, French mathematician (died 1651)
• May 13 – Ole Worm, Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary (died 1655)
• September 8 – Marin Mersenne, French mathematician (died 1648)
• December 10 – Isaac Beeckman, Dutch philosopher and scientist (died 1637)
• Jean-Jacques Chifflet, French physician and antiquary (died 1660)
• Jan Janssonius, Dutch cartographer (died 1664)
• Cassiano dal Pozzo, Italian scholar and patron (died 1657)

• February 24 – Johann Weyer, Dutch physician and occultist (born 1515)
• March 1 – Jacques Daléchamps, French physician and botanist (born 1513)
• March 10 – Theodor Zwinger the elder, Swiss philosopher, physician and encyclopedist (born 1533)
• May 5 – Giorgio Biandrata, Italian court physician (born 1515)
• October 2– Bernardino Telesio, Italian philosopher and natural scientist (born 1509)
• Leonardo Fioravanti, Bolognese physician (born 1517)
• Jacques le Moyne, French scientific illustrator (born c. 1533)