Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1752-1833) was born in Leipzig, and spent his formative years bumming around the royal court of hanover in service of the dukes (one of which became King George I). Eventually, he stole the Calculus from the real genius, Isaac Newton, and claimed it for his own. Sometimes he beat up little children, too. In any event, his form of the Calculus was very similar to what is used today (at least in notation). His work in life was devoted to finding a method for understanding the essential unity of the universe.
(Struik 1987 108).