← 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
Galileo Galilei22 decades - 2
Michelangelo22 decades - 3
Raphael22 decades - 4
Giordano Bruno22 decades - 5
Titian22 decades - 6
Lucrezia Borgia22 decades - 7
Cesare Borgia22 decades - 8
Pope Gregory XIII22 decades - 9
Pope Sixtus V22 decades - 10
Giorgio Vasari22 decades - 11
Pope Paul V22 decades - 12
Pope Pius V8 decades - 13
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina16 decades - 14
Tintoretto22 decades - 15
Andrea Palladio22 decades - 16
Torquato Tasso22 decades - 17
Ludovico Ariosto22 decades - 18
Charles Borromeo22 decades - 19
Giuseppe Arcimboldo4 decades - 20
Pope Julius III22 decades - 21
Robert Bellarmine22 decades - 22
Pope Pius IV22 decades - 23
Aloysius Gonzaga22 decades - 24
Paolo Veronese22 decades - 25
Matteo Ricci22 decades - 26
Sofonisba Anguissola19 decades - 27
Giovanni da Verrazzano19 decades - 28
Pope Urban VII0 decades - 29
Gerolamo Cardano19 decades - 30
Pope Marcellus II19 decades - 31
Pope Clement VIII21 decades - 32
Pope Paul IV21 decades - 33
Antonio Pigafetta20 decades - 34
Pietro Aretino22 decades - 35
Isabella d'Estenot measured- - 36
Andrea Doria22 decades - 37
Giorgione22 decades - 38
Pontormo22 decades - 39
Antonio da Correggio22 decades - 40
Annibale Carracci22 decades - 41
Bona Sforza22 decades - 42
Parmigianino22 decades - 43
Baldassare Castiglione22 decades - 44
Giovanni delle Bande Nere21 decades - 45
Pietro Bembo22 decades - 46
Beatrice Cenci22 decades - 47
Vittore Carpaccio22 decades - 48
Pope Gregory XV6 decades - 49
Giulio Romano22 decades - 50
Giulia Farnese20 decades - 51
Lavinia Fontana22 decades - 52
Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoynot measured- - 53
Vittoria Colonna22 decades - 54
Camillus de Lellis0 decades - 55
Alessandro Valignano7 decades - 56
Francesco II Sforza22 decades - 57Giovanni Gabrieli17 decades
- 58
Veronica Franco20 decades - 59
Il Sodoma0 decades - 60
Rosso Fiorentino19 decades - 61
Pope Innocent IX0 decades - 62
Pope Gregory XIV0 decades - 63
Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara0 decades - 64
Domenico Fontana22 decades - 65
Thomas Cajetan0 decades - 66
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia22 decades - 67
Lawrence of Brindisi22 decades - 68
Federico Barocci22 decades - 69
Jacopo Peri22 decades - 70
Giulio Caccini22 decades - 71
Giovanni Sforza22 decades - 72
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger10 decades - 73
Alfonso II d'Este0 decades - 74
Federico Zuccari22 decades - 75
Cecilia Gallerani0 decades - 76
Giacomo della Porta20 decades - 77
Sebastiano Serlio22 decades - 78
Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara0 decades - 79
Bartolomeo Ammannati18 decades - 80
Marcantonio Raimondi22 decades - 81
Luca Marenzio19 decades - 82
Bartolomeo Eustachi0 decades - 83
Pirro Ligorio22 decades - 84
Francesco Maria II della Rovere19 decades - 85
Cesare Ripa16 decades - 86
Felix of Cantalice0 decades - 87
Cigoli15 decades - 88
Andrea Sansovino22 decades - 89
Bramantino22 decades - 90
Gian Paolo Lomazzo3 decades - 91
Ignazio Danti21 decades - 92
Taddeo Zuccari22 decades - 93
Galeazzo Alessi22 decades - 94
Pietro Bernini0 decades - 95
Vannoccio Biringuccio11 decades - 96Ascanio Condivi22 decades
- 97
Benedetto Varchi22 decades - 98
Leone Leoni0 decades - 99
Girolamo Genga5 decades - 100
Pier Francesco Orsini0 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.