← 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
Pieter Bruegel the Elder0 decades - 2
Cornelis van Haarlem0 decades - 3
Pieter Aertsen0 decades - 4
Karel van Mander the Eldernot measured- - 5
Hendrik Goltzius0 decades - 6
Abraham Bloemaert0 decades - 7
Adriaen de Vries0 decades - 8
Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom0 decades - 9
Gillis van Coninxloo0 decades - 10
Philip Galle16 decades - 11
Cornelis Ketel0 decades - 12
Dirck Barendsz.0 decades - 13Hubert Gerhard12 decades
- 14
Crispijn van de Passe the Eldernot measured- - 15
Jacob van Utrecht0 decades - 16
Jacob Savery0 decades - 17
Jan Kraecknot measured- - 18
Isaac van Swanenburgnot measured- - 19
Jan Soensnot measured- - 20Cornelis Bos0 decades
- 21
Jacob Willemsz Delffnot measured- - 22
Jan Nagelnot measured- - 23
Emanuel Sweertnot measured- - 24
Dirck Hendricksznot measured- - 25
Pieter Pietersz the Eldernot 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.