← 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 - 26
Pieter Brueghel the Younger0 decades - 27
Lorenzo Lotto22 decades - 28
Giulio Romano22 decades - 29
Andrea del Sarto22 decades - 30
Lavinia Fontana22 decades - 31
Giambologna19 decades - 32
Albrecht Altdorfer19 decades - 33
Hans Holbein the Elder5 decades - 34
Hans Baldung20 decades - 35
Orazio Gentileschi17 decades - 36
Lucas Cranach the Younger0 decades - 37
Tang Yin2 decades - 38
Il Sodoma0 decades - 39
Rosso Fiorentino19 decades - 40
Quentin Matsys9 decades - 41
Sebastiano del Piombo21 decades - 42
Francesco Melzi0 decades - 43
Agostino Carracci22 decades - 44
Jacopo Sansovino22 decades - 45
Bernardino Luini22 decades - 46
Fra Bartolomeo22 decades - 47
Dosso Dossi22 decades - 48
Daniele da Volterra22 decades - 49
François Clouet17 decades - 50
Jacopo Bassano19 decades - 51
Federico Barocci22 decades - 52
Baldassare Peruzzi22 decades - 53
Nicholas Hilliard9 decades - 54
Federico Zuccari22 decades - 55
Dong Qichang4 decades - 56
Wen Zhengmingnot measured- - 57
Alessandro Allori22 decades - 58
Antonis Mor0 decades - 59
Giovanni Battista Moroni4 decades - 60
Ludovico Carracci14 decades - 61
Alonso Berruguete22 decades - 62
Joachim Patinir0 decades - 63
Jean Clouet17 decades - 64
Francisco Pacheco22 decades - 65
Jan Gossaert0 decades - 66
Maarten van Heemskerck0 decades - 67
Baccio Bandinelli22 decades - 68
Salaì0 decades - 69
Lucas van Leyden20 decades - 70
Cornelis van Haarlem0 decades - 71
Hans von Aachen10 decades - 72
Pieter Aertsen0 decades - 73
Hans Burgkmair the Elder0 decades - 74
Marcantonio Raimondi22 decades - 75
Bernardo Buontalenti22 decades - 76
Karel van Mander the Eldernot measured- - 77
Domenico Beccafumi22 decades - 78
Palma il Giovane9 decades - 79
Catarina van Hemessennot measured- - 80
Palma Vecchio15 decades
- 81
Francesco Salviati22 decades - 82
Joos van Cleve1 decades - 83
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio0 decades - 84
Francesco Primaticcio18 decades - 85
Alonso Sánchez Coello14 decades - 86
Plautilla Nelli8 decades - 87
Pieter Coecke van Aelst0 decades - 88
Il Pordenone14 decades - 89
Hendrik Goltzius0 decades - 90
Juan Sánchez Cotán6 decades - 91
Paris Bordone13 decades - 92
Abraham Bloemaert0 decades - 93
Hasegawa Tōhaku0 decades - 94
Ambrosius Holbein13 decades - 95
Bartholomeus Spranger0 decades - 96
Jost Amman5 decades - 97
Luis de Morales21 decades - 98
Properzia de' Rossi16 decades - 99
Perino del Vaga22 decades - 100
Otto van Veen0 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.