Edu365.cat

Encyclopaedias aim to supply the sum of human knowledge or that covered by a specific science. The format in which we have come to know them, as individual articles and ordered alphabetically, these monumental reference works have been with us for less than three hundred years.

But going back to Antiquity, there were works that were considered veritable compendiums of knowledge of the time. Such is the case, for example, of the works of the philosopher and scientist Aristotle, and 'Natural History' by Pliny the Elder, made up of 37 books about anthropology, architecture, astronomy, biology, botany cosmology, geography, and medicine, etc.

The 18th century produced two of the most famous encyclopaedias of all times: the Encyclopaedia of Diderot, which included contributions by some of the leading philosophers from the French Enlightenment (D'Alembert, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire), and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the oldest in the English language, which was first published in the Scottish capital Edinburgh in 1768.

Until not long ago all encyclopaedias were published on paper. Now, however, there are more and more encyclopaedias on the Internet, constantly being updated and with multimedia content. Some sites require users to pay to access them but others are free. Let's look at some of them.