Who Was Alive

Jean de La Fontaine

French poet, fabulist and writer

Born 8 July 1621 · died 13 April 1695, aged 73

Who was alive at the same time as Jean de La Fontaine?

Drag across the timeline to see who was alive in any year and the age each person reached that year. Faded ends mark uncertain dates.

When Jean de La Fontaine was born, Galileo Galilei was 57, René Descartes was 25, Rembrandt was 14, Francis Bacon was 60 and Johannes Kepler was 49.

When Jean de La Fontaine died, Isaac Newton was 52, Johann Sebastian Bach was 10, Voltaire was under a year old, John Locke was 62 and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was 48.

Born during Jean de La Fontaine’s lifetime: Isaac Newton, Johann Sebastian Bach, Voltaire, Molière, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Matsuo Bashō and Blaise Pascal.

Not quite contemporaries: William Shakespeare died 5 years before Jean de La Fontaine was born, Miguel de Cervantes died 5 years before Jean de La Fontaine was born, Benjamin Franklin was born 11 years after Jean de La Fontaine died and Carl Linnaeus was born 12 years after Jean de La Fontaine died.

Compare

All 61 contemporaries we track

  1. Isaac Newton 1642 – 1727
  2. Galileo Galilei 1564 – 1642
  3. Johann Sebastian Bach 1685 – 1750
  4. Voltaire 1694 – 1778
  5. René Descartes 1596 – 1650
  6. Molière 1622 – 1673
  7. John Locke 1632 – 1704
  8. Rembrandt 1606 – 1669
  9. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 – 1716
  10. Matsuo Bashō 1644 – 1694
  11. Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662
  12. Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626
  13. Johannes Kepler 1571 – 1630
  14. Louis XIV of France 1638 – 1715
  15. Peter the Great 1672 – 1725
  16. Benedictus de Spinoza 1632 – 1677
  17. Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640
  18. Diego Velázquez 1599 – 1660
  19. Antonio Vivaldi 1678 – 1741
  20. Jonathan Swift 1667 – 1745
  21. Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679
  22. George Frideric Handel 1685 – 1759
  23. Montesquieu 1689 – 1755
  24. John Milton 1608 – 1674
  25. Daniel Defoe 1659–1662 – 1731
  26. Lope de Vega 1562 – 1635
  27. Oliver Cromwell 1599 – 1658
  28. Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744
  29. Christiaan Huygens 1629 – 1695
  30. Jean Racine 1639 – 1699
  31. Johannes Vermeer 1632 – 1675
  32. Pierre de Fermat 1607 – 1665
  33. Robert Boyle 1627 – 1691
  34. Charles I of England 1600 – 1649
  35. George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
  36. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 1632 – 1723
  37. Pierre Corneille 1606 – 1684
  38. Charles Perrault 1628 – 1703
  39. Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu 1585 – 1642
  40. Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600 – 1681
  41. Abel Tasman 1603 – 1659
  42. Robert Hooke 1635 – 1703
  43. Shah Jahan 1592 – 1666
  44. John Donne 1572 – 1631
  45. Charles II of England 1630 – 1685
  46. Edmond Halley 1656 – 1742
  47. John Amos Comenius 1592 – 1670
  48. François de La Rochefoucauld 1613 – 1680
  49. James VI and I 1566 – 1625
  50. John Dryden 1631 – 1700
  51. Aurangzeb 1618 – 1707
  52. Louis XIII of France 1601 – 1643
  53. Anne of Great Britain 1665 – 1714
  54. William Harvey 1578 – 1657
  55. Hugo Grotius 1583 – 1645
  56. Evangelista Torricelli 1608 – 1647
  57. Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665
  58. Benedict XIV 1675 – 1758
  59. Urban VIII 1568 – 1644
  60. William III of England 1650 – 1702
  61. Robert Walpole 1676 – 1745