Editor: Dana Jalobeanu
Francis Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum was once a very popular book. Published posthumously in 1626 or 1627, it went through a large number of English editions, and circulated widely across Europe translated into French and Latin. It was read, annotated, discussed and often quoted in philosophical discussions, often referred to it simply as ‘Lord Bacon’s Natural History’, a sign that its popularity surpassed (by far) that of Bacon’s other (Latin) natural histories. The Sylva sylvarum is organized as a collection of 1000 items loosely called ‘experiments’, grouped in ten centuries. Some of these ‘experiments’ are reminiscent of recipes and items found in most Renaissance books of secrets; others are complex and intricate recordings, more like early modern ‘trials’ and experimental reports. Many items display a complex interplay of theoretical considerations and records of practices, sometimes supplemented with methodological considerations. And some of these experiments are quite explicit – more than in the case of other works by Bacon – with respect to an underlying rich and intricate vitalist metaphysics, i.e., what has been called Bacon’s ‘speculative philosophy’. Sylva sylvarum also displays what looks like a parallel attempt to organize experiments topically. Using a term borrowed from music, Bacon calls some series of experiments ‘experiments in consort’. We have ‘experiments in consort’ regarding generation, putrefaction, percolation, sound, audibles and so on. Sylva also contains ‘solitary experiments’, which, allegedly, depict ideas for single experiments or trials; although often they also display a remarkable rich structure and a diversity of suggestions, proposals and questions.
This edition will build on recent scholarship on the sources, methods of assembly and the reception of the Sylva sylvarum. They seem to corroborate the hypothesis that we have, in the text of the Sylva sylvarum, an interesting case study of what might be called ‘science in the making’.
The Oxford Francis Bacon I: Early Writings 1584-1596, ed. by Alan Stewart with Harriet Knight (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 1,136. ISBN: 978-0-19-818313-6.