← Fame through time1500-1599
The 16th century
Whose working lives fell in the 16th 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 16th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
William Shakespeare22 decades - 2
Martin Luther22 decades - 3
Galileo Galilei22 decades - 4
Michelangelo22 decades - 5
Niccolò Machiavelli22 decades - 6
Miguel de Cervantes22 decades - 7
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor22 decades - 8
Hernán Cortés22 decades - 9
Ivan the Terrible19 decades - 10
Mary, Queen of Scots22 decades - 11
Akbarnot measured- - 12
Ferdinand Magellan22 decades - 13
Nicolaus Copernicus8 decades - 14
Suleiman the Magnificent11 decades - 15
Philip II of Spain22 decades - 16
Anne Boleyn22 decades - 17
Thomas More22 decades - 18
Mary I of England22 decades - 19
Vasco da Gama22 decades - 20
Henry VIII of England13 decades - 21
Raphael22 decades - 22
Nostradamus22 decades - 23
Henry IV of France10 decades - 24
Elizabeth I of England6 decades - 25
Francis Drake22 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.