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New Women in Science! Brain mapper, lymphatic system revolutionary, and tuberculosis warrior Florence Sabin!!
Leibniz had a strange relationship with Spinoza. Because of Spinoza’s almost universally reviled status as an arch-atheist of the worst colors, Leibniz had to publicly take every opportunity to discredit him, but secretly he was fascinated by the Dutch philosopher. He went out of his way to visit Spinoza, and would never reveal fully the conversation that passed between the two. Leibniz was essentially a hyper-ambitious courtier, who didn’t have the luxury of radical opinions, but he was also perhaps the most brilliant man in Europe at the time, and couldn’t help but note the soundness of Spinoza’s forbidden thought, if only in private. – Count DvL
Leibniz was rather famous for having one of the oddest walking gaits on the European intellectual scene, his limbs flapping about all higgeldy piggeldy as he moved. It most likely wasn’t an issue of footwear, but when you add Paris, where he dallied for months upon months when he should have been attending to his job as a German librarian, the attraction is real. – Count DvL