Polymaths - The Advancement of Learning

Like printing, this process had been going on since the 15th century but a tipping point was reached in the 17th. The new inventions of the telescope and the microscope gave access to new worlds of knowledge. Unfortunately, what Francis Bacon called the advancement of learning had its downside. Caminoes dreamed of reuniting the fragments into what he called pan-sofia - universal wisdom that would lead to the reform of the world.