← 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
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek7 decades - 2
Edmond Halley6 decades - 3
Feodor II of Russianot measured- - 4
Maria Sibylla Merian9 decades - 5
Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban2 decades - 6
Evangelista Torricelli22 decades - 7
Prince Rupert of the Rhinenot measured- - 8
Otto von Guericke10 decades - 9
Denis Papin19 decades - 10
Thomas Newcomen15 decades - 11
Bartolomeo Cristofori0 decades - 12
Johannes Hevelius3 decades - 13
Hans Sloane22 decades - 14
Thomas Savery5 decades - 15
Cornelis Drebbelnot measured- - 16
Jan Baptist van Helmont0 decades - 17
John Flamsteed7 decades - 18
John Ray22 decades - 19
Matthäus Merian18 decades - 20
Willebrord Snellius1 decades - 21
Engelbert Kaempfer7 decades - 22
Hennig Brand0 decades - 23
Johann Adam Schall von Bell5 decades - 24
Eusebio Kino12 decades - 25
Nicolas Fatio de Duillier0 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.