← Fame through time1800-1899
The 19th century
Whose names filled the books of the 19th century - anyone at all, however long dead - counted as mentions per million words printed, so a period that simply published more does not inflate anyone.
Talked about then
Whose names appeared most in Chinese books during the 19th century, whenever they lived.
- 1
Zhu Xi870 - 2
Li Hongzhang149 - 3
Zhang Zhidong86 - 4
Zuo Zongtang43 - 5
Ban Gu40 - 6
Ge Hong40 - 7Chen Shou14
- 8
Mao Zedong12 - 9
Lu Xun11
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 19th century, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
John William Waterhouse0 decades - 2
Margaret of Savoy17 decades - 3
Francesco Hayez20 decades - 4
Giovanni Segantini13 decades - 5
Giovanni Boldini11 decades - 6
Felice Beato2 decades - 7
Giovanni Fattori14 decades - 8
Eugene de Blaasnot measured- - 9
Giuseppe De Nittis12 decades - 10
Federico Zandomeneghinot measured- - 11
Fausto Zonaronot measured- - 12
Silvestro Leganot measured- - 13
Fyodor Bruninot measured- - 14
Domenico Morellinot measured- - 15
Amilcare Ciprianinot measured- - 16
Antonio Mancininot measured- - 17
Telemaco Signorininot measured- - 18
Roberto Ferruzzi0 decades - 19
Vittorio Matteo Corcosnot measured- - 20
Francesco Filippini13 decades - 21
Cesare Maccarinot measured- - 22
Carlo Pellegrininot measured- - 23
Giuseppe Abbatinot measured- - 24
Giovanni Strazzanot measured- - 25
Ettore Ferrarinot measured-
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.