Pope Gregory XIV

About Pope Gregory XIV

Pope Gregory XIV, born Niccolò Sfondrati, was a religious figure whose brief pontificate in 1590 marked him as a significant, if short-lived, leader within the Catholic Church. His importance, securing him the #974 ranking from MIT’s Pantheon project, stems from his context within the Counter-Reformation era and his role as the immediate successor to Pope Urban VII. Although his papacy lasted only 10 months, his actions and position placed him within the crucial historical current of the late 16th century Catholic structure.

Despite his placement in the top 1,000 most influential historical figures, Pope Gregory XIV currently experiences a notable historical attention gap online. In 2025, his Wikipedia page accrued only 28K annualized views. This level of attention is starkly low when compared to contemporaries in the religious sphere; for instance, fellow religious figure Pope Clement VI, ranked similarly at #999 importance, still garnered 60K views. Gregory XIV is thus under-attended by a factor of approximately -11x relative to his historical ranking.

While the overall attention remains low, the figure shows recent fluctuation, with views increasing by a significant +79.3% year-over-year. However, this growth is tempered by a recent loss of traction, as indicated by a -23% dip in momentum when comparing Q1 to Q3 in 2025.