1500–1599
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 Wikipedia coverage and readership agree.
#PersonIn print, 1800–2019Echoed
- 1
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William Farel1489–1565 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors22 decades - 2PRPierre Robert Olivétan1505–1538 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors0 decades
- 3
Jean Duvet1485–1561 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors13 decades - 4
Conrad Lycosthenes1518–1561 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors0 decades - 5CCorderius1479–1564 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors20 decades
- 6NCNicolas Cop1501–1540 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors14 decades
- 7
Lambert Daneau1535–1595 · 🇫🇷 France · Actors0 decades - 8JBJérôme-Hermès Bolsec1501–1585 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 9IGInnocent Gentillet1532–1588 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 10JDJean de Serres1540–1598 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 11
Étienne Delaune1518–1583 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured— - 12FLFrancis Lambert1486–1530 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 13PCPierre Caroli1480–1546 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 14JAJacques Almain1480–1515 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
- 15JSJacques Sabon1535–1580 · 🇫🇷 France · Actorsnot measured—
How this is measured
- Placing people in time. Each person belongs to the century in which they were most active — around age 35, and never after their death.
- Who ranks highest. Within a century, people are ranked where two independent signals agree: how many of the world’s Wikipedia language editions cover them, and how many people actually read about them. Article counts alone can be lifted by a person’s own circle; readers cannot.
- Fame in print. The curves count how often a name appears in Google Books from 1800 to 2019, as a share of all the words printed each year, in the person’s own language wherever that corpus exists. Those decades are over, so each measurement is made once and kept.
- What is left out. A lifetime is measured only from 1820, when there is enough print to judge; the five years after a death are skipped as obituaries; and a name shared with someone equally notable is credited to neither.