By definition, a scholar is someone whose knowledge spans a considerable number of diverse subject areas. In simple terms, they are people who know a lot about many things. The word is closely related to the common term Renaissance man, as the latter is someone who is educated or performs extremely well in a wide variety of fields or subjects. On the other hand, because polymath is an ancient term, the meaning attributed to polymath today is substantially different from that of ancient times.
How is this so? To begin with, in those early days of civilization, science had not yet been divided into its specific fields, such as chemistry, astronomy, zoology, etc., so these labels had not yet been created. Back then, science was unified and its sole purpose was to build and organize knowledge about the entire universe. The result would be that there would be no such things: specialized scientists (no chemists, no zoologists), though perhaps an astronomer or an artist. So, it would be completely natural for a scientist of the stature of Copernicus to be a doctor, mathematician and astronomer at the same time, since all this implied the construction of knowledge about the universe. Consequently, this would make Copernicus, as well as Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon, scholars today.
Centuries ago, there were many great scholars, but there is no other scholar who is as celebrated and revered as Leonardo da Vinci, the archetypal man of the Renaissance. Even today, Leonardo da Vinci is often referred to as the most talented man to ever walk the face of this planet. Say this at once: he was an architect, anatomist, botanist, engineer, cartographer, geologist, mathematician, scientist, musician, painter, sculptor, inventor, and writer. Leonardo da Vinci not only painted the Mona Lisa or drew the Vitruvian Man, but also conceptualized the calculator, the helicopter, solar energy, inventions that were only feasible a century or two ago.
Alexander von Humboldt is known as the last Renaissance man in civilization. It is known that he contributed significantly to all fields of natural science, from botany to geology and zoology; Alexander von Humboldt also created the field of meteorology. But Alexander von Humboldt’s most important contribution was his theory that all of these various scientific fields were interconnected, meaning that every living thing is connected to every part of nature.
Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century polymath, also known as “the master of a hundred arts”. As a scholar, Athanasius Kircher is sometimes referred to as the father of Egyptology, as he was one of the first people to not only interpret hieroglyphic script, but also relate it to other ancient forms of writing, such as the Coptic languages. . He was also a geologist and probably the first person to scientifically understand the effects of microbes and microorganisms. The magnetic clock, the automaton and the megaphone are inventions attributed to Athanasius Kircher.
Joseph Leidy was the first paleontologist to successfully excavate a complete fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur. Other scientific fields that were of interest to Joseph Leidy were parasitology, geology, and mineralogy. But Joseph Leidy’s fame rests on the fact that he became the first person to use a microscope to finally solve a murder case. Many people now refer to him as one of the founding fathers of forensic science.
