← 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
Henry V of England1 decades - 2
Lorenzo de' Medici22 decades - 3
Girolamo Savonarola22 decades - 4
Ivan III of Russia8 decades - 5
Charles VIII of France11 decades - 6
Charles the Bold22 decades - 7
Cosimo de' Medici22 decades - 8
James II of Scotland0 decades - 9
James III of Scotland0 decades - 10
Tomás de Torquemada22 decades - 11
Mary of Burgundy22 decades - 12
Philip the Good0 decades - 13
John Hunyadi19 decades - 14
Afonso de Albuquerque4 decades - 15
Richard of York, 3rd Duke of Yorknot measured- - 16
Vasily I of Moscow5 decades - 17
Edward V of England0 decades - 18
Louis XI of France8 decades - 19
Caterina Sforza3 decades - 20
1st Dalai Lamanot measured- - 21
William Caxton22 decades - 22
Giuliano de' Medici22 decades - 23
Sejo of Joseonnot measured- - 24
Richard Nevillenot measured- - 25
Piero di Cosimo de' Medici11 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.