Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz has often been seen as a polymath. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in the statement that 'a man can do all things if he will'.

Polymaths include the great scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, who excelled at several fields in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the arts. Use in English of the similar term polyhistor dates from the late 16th century. The earliest recorded use of the term in the English language is from 1624, in the second edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton the form polymathist is slightly older, first appearing in the Diatribae upon the first part of the late History of Tithes of Richard Montagu in 1621. Von Wowern lists erudition, literature, philology, philomathy and polyhistory as synonyms. ranging freely through all the fields of the disciplines, as far as the human mind, with unwearied industry, is able to pursue them'. Von Wowern defined polymathy as 'knowledge of various matters, drawn from all kinds of studies . In Western Europe, the first work to use the term polymathy in its title ( De Polymathia tractatio: integri operis de studiis veterum) was published in 1603 by Johann von Wowern, a Hamburg philosopher. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.Ī polymath ( Greek: πολυμαθής, polymathēs, 'having learned much' Latin: homo universalis, 'universal human') is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Franklin was a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer and political philosopher. Benjamin Franklin is one of the foremost polymaths in history.

Polymath software on mediafire