← Fame through time1400-1499
The 15th century
Whose working lives fell in the 15th century. 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 15th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Christopher Columbus21 decades - 2
Leonardo da Vinci22 decades - 3
Joan of Arc22 decades - 4
Vlad the Impaler3 decades - 5
Isabella I of Castile19 decades - 6
Amerigo Vespucci22 decades - 7
Pope Alexander VI22 decades - 8
Johannes Gutenberg17 decades - 9
Richard III of England0 decades - 10
Hieronymus Bosch9 decades - 11
Henry V of England1 decades - 12
Ferdinand II of Aragon14 decades - 13
Zheng He8 decades - 14
Jan Hus9 decades - 15
Henry VII of England7 decades - 16
Sandro Botticelli22 decades - 17
Lorenzo de' Medici22 decades - 18
Girolamo Savonarola22 decades - 19
Henry VI of England0 decades - 20
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperornot measured- - 21
Skanderbeg7 decades - 22
Donatello22 decades - 23
Pope Julius II22 decades - 24
Richard II of England0 decades - 25
Henry IV of England0 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.