← 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
Nicolaus Copernicus8 decades - 2
Nostradamus22 decades - 3
Giordano Bruno22 decades - 4
John Calvin22 decades - 5
Francis Bacon22 decades - 6
Huldrych Zwingli9 decades - 7
John Dee22 decades - 8
William Tyndale21 decades - 9
Gerardus Mercator0 decades - 10
John Napier22 decades - 11
Wang Yangming8 decades - 12
Katharina von Bora21 decades - 13
Gerolamo Cardano19 decades - 14
Jean Bodin22 decades - 15
Judah Loew ben Bezalel0 decades - 16
Francysk Skaryna16 decades - 17
Francisco de Vitoria21 decades - 18
Menno Simons18 decades - 19
Ulrich von Hutten22 decades - 20
François Viète0 decades - 21
Simon Stevin20 decades - 22
Bernardino de Sahagún14 decades - 23
Ahmad Sirhindi1 decades - 24
Johann Tetzel20 decades - 25
Jacobus Arminius0 decades - 26
Martin Bucer22 decades - 27
Vallabha16 decades - 28
John of Leiden0 decades - 29
Mikael Agricola1 decades - 30
Adam Ries7 decades - 31
Theodore Beza21 decades - 32
Sebastian Münster22 decades - 33
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia22 decades - 34
Robert Recorde5 decades - 35
Hugh Latimer22 decades - 36
Johann Eck0 decades - 37
Juan Luis Vives6 decades - 38
Petrus Ramus9 decades - 39
Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'rufnot measured- - 40
Thomas Gresham22 decades - 41
Johannes Bugenhagen18 decades - 42
Andreas Karlstadt0 decades - 43
Thomas of Villanova22 decades - 44
Li Zhinot measured- - 45
Paolo Sarpi22 decades - 46
Eknathnot measured- - 47
Georg Joachim Rheticus4 decades - 48
Yi Inot measured- - 49
Ludolph van Ceulen0 decades - 50
Yi Hwang0 decades - 51
Luis de Molina22 decades
- 52
Henry Briggs17 decades - 53
Gemma Frisius7 decades - 54
Isaac Casaubon18 decades
- 55
Johannes Althusius14 decades - 56
Jost Bürgi0 decades - 57
Moses Isserlesnot measured- - 58
Rafael Bombelli0 decades - 59
Petrus Apianus12 decades - 60
Blaise de Vigenère0 decades - 61
Johannes Oecolampadius0 decades - 62
Pedro Nunes0 decades - 63
Oronce Finé14 decades - 64
John Florio22 decades - 65
Martin Chemnitz22 decades - 66
Matrakçı Nasuh0 decades - 67
Johann Arndt21 decades - 68
Bahāʾ al-dīn al-ʿĀmilīnot measured- - 69
Bartolomeo Eustachi0 decades - 70
Johannes Agricola9 decades - 71
Francesco Patrizi22 decades - 72
Lodovico Ferrari0 decades - 73
Michael Stifel15 decades - 74
Aloysius Lilius0 decades - 75Scipione del Ferro0 decades
- 76
Philippe de Mornay3 decades - 77
Domingo de Soto22 decades - 78
Martín de Azpilcueta1 decades - 79
Juan Latino21 decades - 80
Alberico Gentili19 decades - 81
Guillaume Budé1 decades - 82
Étienne Dolet0 decades - 83
Bartolomé Carranza22 decades - 84
Melchor Cano22 decades - 85
Bernardino Telesio0 decades - 86
Hector Boece17 decades - 87
William Perkins22 decades - 88
Mir Damad0 decades - 89Jacques Pelletier du Mans12 decades
- 90
Daniele Barbaro22 decades - 91
Pierre Charron1 decades - 92
Andrea Cesalpino0 decades - 93
Michael Sattler7 decades - 94
John Cheke20 decades - 95
Camillo Agrippa13 decades - 96
Realdo Colombo0 decades - 97
Francisco Sanches0 decades - 98
Ali al-Qari0 decades - 99
Rupa Goswami0 decades - 100
Erasmus Reinhold13 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.