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.Born to a professor, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was well-read since childhood. A doctorate in law, he grew up to be a polymath. Apart from being one of the greatest 17th-century rationalist philosophers, he was also an eminent mathematician, scientist, and diplomat. His interests also included medicine and philology.
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.Max Müller was a German-born Orientalist and philologist. Müller is credited with co-founding the western academic disciplines of religious studies and Indian studies. In 1874, he was honored with the Pour le Mérite. He received the prestigious Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 1875. In India, the Goethe Institutes are named in his honor.
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.Giacomo Leopardi was one of the greatest lyric poets of the 19th century. Born into a noble family, he mastered several languages and wrote many works by 16, in spite of suffering from a cerebrospinal ailment. Remembered for his iconic works such as A Silvia, he died during a cholera epidemic.
Considered the most politically influential Jew in Muslim Spain, Samuel ibn Naghrillah was also an eminent Talmudic scholar, poet, grammarian, philologist and soldier. Beginning his life as a merchant in Córdoba, he later moved to Granada, where his linguistic and calligraphic skills caught the attention of the vizier; he was appointed first as assistant vizier and on latter on as the vizier.
Frederic W.H. Myers was a 19th-century classicist and a Victorian psychical researcher. The essayist’s best-known work remains his posthumously published 2-volume collection Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. He also penned award-winning poems. Rumors claim he was homosexual but also had a relationship with his cousin's wife.
Spanish philologist Germà Colón is remembered as one of the greatest experts of linguistic historiography. Apart from penning iconic works such as The Landscape of Catalan Lexicography, he also taught at various universities and was awarded the St. George's Cross by the Catalan government. He eventually died of COVID-19.
