Spotlight: Denis Diderot, the French philosopher and writer, served as chief editor of the Encyclopédie, and was a prime shaper of the Enlightenment period. Born on this date in 1713, Diderot was a prolific writer of novels, essays and plays, and became one of the first influential art critics. Originally asked to translate Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Scienc