← 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
Blaise Pascal22 decades - 3
Pierre de Fermat8 decades - 4
Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon22 decades - 5
Marin Mersenne17 decades - 6
Pierre Gassendi21 decades - 7
Pierre Bayle22 decades - 8
Nicolas Malebranche11 decades - 9
Gilles de Roberval0 decades - 10
Michel Rolle0 decades - 11
Pierre Varignon2 decades - 12
François de La Mothe Le Vayernot measured- - 13
Jean Hardouin11 decades - 14
Antoine de Montchrestien9 decades - 15
Étienne Pascal18 decades - 16
Claude Gaspar Bachet de Méziriacnot measured- - 17
Jacques Ozanam0 decades - 18
Nicolas Andry0 decades - 19
Pierre Verniernot measured- - 20
Jacob Spon19 decades - 21
Bernard Lamy13 decades - 22
Louis Cousin14 decades - 23
Jean Riolan the Youngernot measured- - 24
Honoré Fabri0 decades - 25
Pierre Carcavy0 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.