← 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
Erasmusnot measured- - 2
Pieter Bruegel the Elder0 decades - 3
Willem Barentsz0 decades - 4
Menno Simons18 decades - 5
Peter Canisius7 decades - 6
Jacobus Arminius0 decades - 7
Johan van Oldenbarnevelt0 decades - 8
Joseph Justus Scaliger0 decades - 9
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck0 decades - 10
Cornelis de Houtman0 decades - 11
Jodocus Hondius Inot measured- - 12
Cornelis van Haarlem0 decades - 13
Pieter Aertsen0 decades - 14
Karel van Mander the Eldernot measured- - 15
Petrus Plancius0 decades - 16
Jan Joosten van Lodensteijnnot measured- - 17
Hendrik Goltzius0 decades - 18
Abraham Bloemaert0 decades - 19
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten0 decades - 20
Jan Matthys0 decades - 21
Adriaen de Vries0 decades - 22Nicolas Gombert0 decades
- 23
Olivier van Noort0 decades - 24
Franciscus Gomarus0 decades - 25
Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom0 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.