← 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
Niccolò Machiavelli22 decades - 2
Ivan the Terrible19 decades - 3
Suleiman the Magnificent11 decades - 4
Thomas More22 decades - 5
Catherine of Aragon20 decades - 6
Henry II of Francenot measured- - 7
Toyotomi Hideyoshi8 decades - 8
Francis II of France22 decades - 9
Boris Godunov22 decades - 10
William the Silentnot measured- - 11
Walter Raleigh22 decades - 12
Moctezuma II1 decades - 13
Feodor I of Russianot measured- - 14
Thomas Cromwell22 decades - 15
Margaret Tudor19 decades - 16
Vasili III of Russia12 decades - 17
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley0 decades - 18
Matthias, Holy Roman Emperornot measured- - 19
Isabella of Portugalnot measured- - 20
Pargalı Ibrahim Pashanot measured- - 21
John of Austria22 decades - 22
Claude of France22 decades - 23
Jeanne d'Albret22 decades - 24
Stephen Báthory0 decades - 25
Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany22 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.