215,950 profiles ranked

← 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. 1Pope Gregory XIII1502-1585 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  2. 2Pope Sixtus V1521-1590 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  3. 3Pope Paul V1552-1621 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  4. 4Pope Pius V1504-1572 · Italy · Religious Figures8 decades
  5. 5Charles Borromeo1538-1584 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  6. 6Pope Julius III1487-1555 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  7. 7Robert Bellarmine1542-1621 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  8. 8Pope Pius IV1499-1565 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  9. 9Aloysius Gonzaga1568-1591 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  10. 10Pope Urban VII1521-1590 · Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  11. 11Pope Marcellus II1501-1555 · Italy · Religious Figures19 decades
  12. 12Pope Clement VIII1536-1605 · Italy · Religious Figures21 decades
  13. 13Pope Paul IV1476-1559 · Italy · Religious Figures21 decades
  14. 14Pietro Bembo1470-1547 · Italy · Religious Figures22 decades
  15. 15Pope Gregory XV1554-1623 · Italy · Religious Figures6 decades
  16. 16Camillus de Lellis1550-1614 · Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  17. 17Alessandro Valignano1539-1606 · Italy · Religious Figures7 decades
  18. 18Pope Innocent IX1519-1591 · Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  19. 19Pope Gregory XIV1535-1591 · Italy · Religious Figures0 decades
  20. 20Thomas Cajetan1469-1534 · Italy · Religious Figures0 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.