← Fame through time1540-1549
The 1540s
Whose working lives fell in the 1540s. Books are measured from 1800 and readers from 2015, so for this period we can say who lived then, not who was talked about then.
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1540s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
John Calvin22 decades - 2
Francis Xavier22 decades - 3
Catherine Howard22 decades - 4
Humayun21 decades - 5
Catherine Parr22 decades - 6
Giorgio Vasari22 decades - 7
John Knox22 decades - 8
James V of Scotland1 decades - 9
Andrea Palladio22 decades - 10
Gerardus Mercator0 decades - 11
Andreas Vesalius11 decades - 12
Michael Servetus22 decades - 13
Hurrem Sultan0 decades - 14
Francisco de Orellana22 decades - 15
Tahmasp I0 decades - 16
Thomas Tallis9 decades - 17
Ambroise Paré22 decades - 18
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Albanot measured- - 19
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado14 decades - 20
Jiajing Emperor0 decades - 21
Henry I of Portugal0 decades - 22
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somersetnot measured- - 23
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha0 decades - 24
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley22 decades - 25
Şehzade Mehmed0 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.