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. 1Francisco de Vitoria1480-1546 · Spain · Academics21 decades
  2. 2Bernardino de Sahagún1499-1590 · Spain · Academics14 decades
  3. 3Juan Luis Vives1492-1540 · Spain · Academics6 decades
  4. 4Thomas of Villanova1488-1555 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  5. 5Luis de Molina1535-1600 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  6. 6Domingo de Soto1494-1560 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  7. 7Martín de Azpilcueta1492-1586 · Spain · Academics1 decades
  8. 8Juan Latino1516-1590 · Spain · Academics21 decades
  9. 9Bartolomé Carranza1503-1576 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  10. 10Melchor Cano1509-1560 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  11. 11Francisco Sanches1550-1623 · Spain · Academics0 decades
  12. 12Alfonso Salmerón1515-1585 · Spain · Academics0 decades
  13. 13Domingo Báñez1528-1604 · Spain · Academics14 decades
  14. 14Oliva Sabuco1562-1646 · Spain · Academics21 decades
  15. 15Diego de Covarubias y Leyva1512-1577 · Spain · Academics3 decades
  16. 16Francisco de Toledo1532-1596 · Spain · Academicsnot measured-
  17. 17Gabriel Vásquez1549-1604 · Spain · Academics4 decades
  18. 18Francisco de Enzinas1518-1552 · Spain · Academics14 decades
  19. 19Domingo de Santo Tomás1499-1570 · Spain · Academics19 decades
  20. 20Benedict Pereira1535-1610 · Spain · Academics10 decades
  21. 21Pedro de Córdoba1482-1521 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  22. 22Tomás de Mercado1525-1575 · Spain · Academics8 decades
  23. 23Alfonso de Castro1494-1558 · Spain · Academics22 decades
  24. 24Martín de Rada1533-1578 · Spain · Academics14 decades
  25. 25Pedro Ciruelo1470-1548 · Spain · Academics22 decades
Show 18 more

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.