← 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
Michelangelo22 decades - 2
Raphael22 decades - 3
Albrecht Dürer22 decades - 4
El Greco15 decades - 5
Titian22 decades - 6
Pieter Bruegel the Elder0 decades - 7
Hans Holbein the Younger18 decades - 8
Giorgio Vasari22 decades - 9
Tintoretto22 decades - 10
Lucas Cranach the Elder6 decades - 11
Benvenuto Cellini22 decades - 12
Giuseppe Arcimboldo4 decades - 13
Paolo Veronese22 decades - 14
Sofonisba Anguissola19 decades - 15
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy22 decades - 16
Isabella d'Estenot measured- - 17
Giorgione22 decades - 18
Pontormo22 decades - 19
Matthias Grünewald1 decades - 20
Antonio da Correggio22 decades - 21
Annibale Carracci22 decades - 22
Bronzino18 decades - 23
Parmigianino22 decades - 24
Vittore Carpaccio22 decades - 25
Hongzhi Emperor0 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.