Writers through history
The atlas holds 180 people and 5,946 moments here, from 620 BC to 2025. The most recorded lives are Giordano Bruno, Giovanni Boccaccio and Epicurus. Across the Cold War and the Interwar Period.
Notable people
Giordano Bruno
from 1548 to 1600
31 moments here
Italian Renaissance philosopher, Dominican friar, writer, and cosmological theorist. Born at Nola, Bruno studied and lived in Italy, Switzerland,…
Giovanni Boccaccio
from 1313 to 1375
26 moments here
Italian writer, poet, and humanist, best known for the Decameron. His documented life moved between Florence, Naples, Romagna, papal Avignon and…
Epicurus
from 341 BC to 270 BC
7 moments here
Ancient Greek philosopher and founder of Epicureanism. The securely documented outline of his movements runs from his birth and upbringing on Samos…
Aristophanes
from 446 BC to 424 BC
2 moments here
Athenian comic playwright of Old Comedy. The surviving biographical record is unusually sparse: reliable evidence securely places him in Athens at…
Sappho
in 600 BC
2 moments here
Archaic Greek lyric poet from Lesbos, active from the late seventh into the early sixth century BC.…
Heraclitus
in 500 BC
2 moments here
Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher associated with Ephesus in Ionia, active around 500 BC.…
Jean de La Fontaine
from 1621 to 1695
13 moments here
French fabulist, poet, dramatist, and author whose Fables became foundational works of French literature.…
Tacitus
from 88 to 112
5 moments here
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian, senator, orator, and provincial governor. His birth date and place are uncertain; he was probably…
Daniel Defoe
from 1660 to 1731
18 moments here
English merchant, political writer, journalist, intelligence agent, and novelist. This chronology records documented physical presences from his…
Al-Ghazali
from 1058 to 1111
14 moments here
Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazali was a Persian Sunni jurist, theologian, philosopher, logician, and mystic.…
Sima Qian
from 145 BC to 110 BC
9 moments here
Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty and author of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian).…
Michel de Montaigne
from 1533 to 1592
31 moments here
French Renaissance writer, magistrate, diplomat, and two-term mayor of Bordeaux, best known for the Essais.…
Francis of Assisi
from 1181 to 1226
33 moments here
Italian Catholic friar, deacon, preacher, and founder of the Order of Friars Minor. Born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone at Assisi, he renounced his…
Hannibal
from 247 BC to 183 BC
43 moments here
Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general and statesman best known for leading an army from Iberia across the Alps into Italy during the Second Punic…
Du Fu
from 712 to 770
35 moments here
Tang-dynasty Chinese poet and minor official. His documented movements span the capital region, the northwest frontier, Sichuan, the Yangtze…
Ptolemy
from 127 to 141
2 moments here
Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and music theorist.…
John Calvin
from 1509 to 1564
17 moments here
French Protestant reformer, pastor, and author. Born in Noyon, he studied law in Bourges and spent formative periods in Paris and Basel before moving…
Nero
from 37 to 68
19 moments here
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was Roman emperor from 13 October 54 to 9 June 68. This chronology records securely documented physical…
Tupac Shakur
from 1971 to 1996
16 moments here
American rapper, actor, poet, and political activist, also known as 2Pac and Makaveli. His documented life included childhood in New York City and…
François Rabelais
from 1520 to 1553
11 moments here
French Renaissance writer, physician, humanist, and Catholic priest. His birth date is disputed, with scholarship placing it between 1483 and 1494;…
Doris Lessing
from 1919 to 2013
17 moments here
British novelist Doris May Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Iran, grew up in Southern Rhodesia, and moved to London in 1949.…
Thomas More
from 1478 to 1535
22 moments here
English lawyer, humanist author, royal councillor, Speaker of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Lord Chancellor under…
Douglas Adams
from 1952 to 2001
25 moments here
English author, screenwriter and humourist best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.…
Averroes
from 1126 to 1182
6 moments here
Averroes, also known as Ibn Rushd, was an Andalusian jurist, physician, philosopher, and commentator on Aristotle.…