← 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
Philip Melanchthon22 decades - 2
Johann Georg Faust0 decades - 3
Christopher Clavius1 decades - 4
William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel22 decades - 5
Paul Luther2 decades - 6
Otto Brunfels22 decades - 7
Valerius Cordus3 decades - 8
Matthias Ringmann0 decades - 9
Heinrich Bünting0 decades - 10
Basilius Besler0 decades - 11
Leonhard Rauwolf0 decades - 12
Nicolaus Reimers0 decades - 13Euricius Cordus21 decades
- 14
Jakob Christmann0 decades - 15
Rumold Mercator0 decades - 16
Georg Hartmann22 decades - 17
Christoph Rothmann0 decades - 18
Martin Helwig0 decades - 19
Bartholomäus Scultetusnot measured- - 20
Daniel Specklinnot measured- - 21
Melchior Lotternot measured- - 22
Paul Wittichnot measured- - 23
Johann Dryandernot measured- - 24
Theodor Dorstennot measured- - 25
Hieronymus Hardernot measured- - 26Michael Neandernot measured-
- 27
Heinrich Decimatornot measured-
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.