ORIGINS OF MODERNITY

natural philosophy

Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)
Baconiana , or, Certain genuine remains of Sr. Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, and Viscount of St. Albans in arguments civil and moral, natural, medical, theological, and bibliographical ...
London : Printed by J. D. for Richard Chiswell, 1679.

This work is the last of three posthumous publications of Bacons's writings which exerted much influence on the early members of the Royal Society. The first was Gruter's Scripta of 1653, the second Rawley's Opuscula of 1659. Baconiana appeared in 1679 thanks to the efforts of Archbishop Tenison who had inherited the Bacon manuscripts from Rawley, Bacon's chaplain. The Baconiana contains a very interesting work entitled The Abecedarium which is an alphabet of nature describing the nature of bodies, their properties and interactions. A manuscript version of this work was discovered in 1980 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris and was found to be remarkably close to that of Baconiana.