← 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
Michiel de Ruyter0 decades - 2
Joost van den Vondel0 decades - 3
Constantijn Huygens18 decades - 4
Jacob Cats2 decades - 5
William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland22 decades - 6
Jan Luyken0 decades - 7
Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft0 decades - 8
Arnold Houbraken0 decades - 9
Nicolaes Witsen0 decades - 10
Cornelis de Bruijn0 decades - 11
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Joannes de Laet0 decades - 12
Joseph de la Vega0 decades - 13
Caspar Barlaeus0 decades - 14
Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Bredero0 decades - 15
Daniel Heinsius7 decades
- 16
Olfert Dapper0 decades - 17
Johannes Meursius0 decades - 18
Isaac Massa0 decades - 19
Gysbert Japiks0 decades
- 20
Govert Bidloo0 decades - 21
Laurens Reael0 decades - 22
Jan Six Inot measured- - 23
Abraham de Wicquefort2 decades - 24
Nicolaas Heinsius the Eldernot measured- - 25
Maria Tesselschade Visscher0 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.