← Fame through time1600-1699
The 17th century
Whose working lives fell in the 17th 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 17th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
René Descartes22 decades - 2
Louis XIV of France22 decades - 3
Molière22 decades - 4
Blaise Pascal22 decades - 5
Cardinal Richelieunot measured- - 6
Jean de La Fontaine22 decades - 7
Charles Perrault22 decades - 8
Jean Racine22 decades - 9
Pierre Corneille22 decades - 10
Marie de' Medici22 decades - 11
Cardinal Mazarin20 decades - 12
Prince Eugene of Savoy22 decades - 13
Cyrano de Bergerac0 decades - 14
Samuel de Champlain17 decades - 15
Pierre de Fermat8 decades - 16
Francis de Sales22 decades - 17
Louis XIII of France22 decades - 18
Jean-Baptiste Colbert22 decades - 19
Nicolas Poussin22 decades - 20
Vincent de Paul22 decades - 21
Philippe I, Duke of Orléansnot measured- - 22
Henrietta Maria of France0 decades - 23
Louis, Grand Dauphinnot measured- - 24
Madame de Sévigné13 decades - 25
Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon22 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.