17th–18th Century Enlightenment Geniuses

Adam Smith

British economist, philosopher and author

Adolphe Quetelet

Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist.

Adolphe Thiers

A French statesman and historian.

Adrien Marie Legendre

A French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics.

Albrecht von Haller

A Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist, encyclopedist, bibliographer and poet who is often referred to as "the fath

Alessandro Volta

An Italian physicist, chemist, and pioneer of electricity who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery.

Alexander Hamilton

An American founding father and statesman

Alexander von Humboldt

A German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.

Alexander Pushkin

A Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet.

Alexander Pope

Is one of the greatest English poets and the foremost poet of the early 18th century.

Ali Pasha of Ioannina

Was an Ottoman Albanian ruler who served as pasha of a large part of western Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European terr

Alphonse de Lamartine

A French author, poet and statesman.

Amedeo Avogadro

An Italian scientist, most noted for his contribution to molecular theory.

André-Marie Ampère

A French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism.

André Marie Jean Jacques Dupin

Serving in as President of the Chamber of Deputies for 7 years.

Andrew Jackson

An American lawyer, soldier, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837.

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

A French economist and statesman.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

An English politician, philosopher, and writer.

Antoine Lavoisier

A French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution.

Antoine Arnauld

A French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

A Dutch businessman and scientist in the Golden Age of Dutch science and technology.

Antonio Canova

An Italian Neoclassical sculptor.

Arthur Schopenhauer

a German philosopher best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844).

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

An Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Brit

Athanasius Kircher

A German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works.

August von Kotzebue

A German dramatist and writer who also worked as a consul in Russia and Germany.

Auguste de Marmont

A French general and nobleman who rose to the rank of Marshal of the Empire.

Auguste Comte

A French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism.

Augustin-Louis Cauchy

A French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics.

Augustin-Jean Fresnel

A French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle

A 19th-century Swiss botanist, noted for his contributions to taxonomy.

Baron d'Holbach

Barthold Georg Niebuhr

Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

A Spanish Baroque painter best known for his religious works.

Baruch Spinoza

A Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin.

Benjamin Franklin

American polymath and a Founding Father of the United States.

Benjamin Constant

A Swiss-French political activist and writer on political theory and religion.

Benoît de Maillet

A well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian.

Blaise Pascal

Pascal's law

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

French scientist & naturalist of the 18th century

Carl Friedrich Gauss

A German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science.

Carl Linnaeus

A Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalized binomial nomenclature, the modern system of nami

Caroline Herschel

Being the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist and to hold a government position in England.

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Coulomb's law

Charles-Guillaume Étienne

A 19th-century French playwright.

Charles Lyell

A Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining Earth's history.

Charles Babbage

A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer.

Montesquieu

A French social commentator & political thinker

Charles James Fox

A prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years

Christiaan Huygens

A Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of a

Christian Thomasius

A German jurist and philosopher.

Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen

A German diplomat and scholar.

Christian Wolff

A German philosopher.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

A composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period.

Christoph Martin Wieland

A German poet and writer best-remembered for having written the first Bildungsroman (Geschichte des Agathon) as well as

Christopher Wren

An acclaimed English architect, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist.

Claude Adrien Helvétius

A French philosopher, freemason and littérateur.

Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney

A French philosopher, abolitionist, writer, orientalist, and politician who was one of the first modern writers to advoc

Daniel Bernoulli

A Swiss mathematician and physicist for pioneering work in probability and statistics

Daniel Webster

One of the most prominent American lawyers of the 19th century who worked on over 200 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court

Daniel Defoe

An English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer and spy most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719.

Daniel O'Connell

The acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century whose actio

David Hume

A Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who is best known for his highly inf

Denis Diderot

La Religieuse

Denis Papin

a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forer

Marquis de Sade

A French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer best known for The 120 Days of Sodom and Justine.

Edmond Halley

An English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist whos observations helped to determine t

Edmund Burke

An Irish statesman and philosopher who supported the rights of the British colonists to resist metropolitan authority.

Edward Jenner

An English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine.

Edward Gibbon

Probably the greatest English historian of all times. Famous for his work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Rom

Vilna Gaon

A Talmudist, Halakhist, and Kabbalist who encouraged his students to study natural sciences, and even translated geometr

Emanuel Swedenborg

A Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic best known his book on the afterlife, Heav

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire

A genius French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He believed in the underlying unity

Francesco Redi

An Italian physician, naturalist, biologist and poet referred to as the founder of experimental biology, and as the fath

Francis Atterbury

An English man of letters, politician and bishop best known for his work An Answer to some Considerations, the Spirit of

François Quesnay

A French economist and physician who is one of the fathers of political economy.

Voltaire

French writer, historian & philosopher who wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets.

François Guizot

French historian, orator, and statesman.

François-René de Chateaubriand

A French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who dominated the literary scene in France in the first half of the

François Fénelon

French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer