Goethe genuinely advanced fields of scientific inquiry such as geology and colour theory; Nabokov is always said to have been an eminent entomologist. Leonardo da Vinci, naturally, is an obvious candidate, with his speculative drawings about engineering projects, though Michelangelo (strangely not mentioned by Burke) was probably just as successful a polymath, achieving masterpieces of the first rank in painting, sculpture, architecture and poetry. Beyond a handful of freaks such as these, we find a lot of experts who dabbled in something else — and we are left trying to admire the paintings of Churchill and Strindberg or the novels of C.P. Snow. – The Spectator