Michel de Montaigne

About Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was a highly influential French Renaissance philosopher and writer, recognized by the Pantheon project with an HPI Rank of #583. His primary contribution lies in popularizing the literary genre of the essay, which he essentially invented. In his *Essays*, Montaigne pioneered introspective self-examination, exploring morality, psychology, and skepticism, profoundly shaping modern thought across literature and philosophy.

In terms of contemporary internet attention, Montaigne sits near the median of historical influence, earning 277K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025. This places his attention gap at approximately 1x, suggesting his modern digital visibility generally aligns with his historical importance. Interestingly, this is significantly less attention than other philosophers in our comparison pool, such as David Hume (#638 importance), who garnered 614K views, indicating a slight underrepresentation in the digital sphere relative to some of his peers.

While his overall standing is stable, Montaigne shows a slight decline in current interest, with both his year-over-year change and recent momentum trending downward by -0.5% and -9% respectively, suggesting his digital footprint may be slowly receding.