Woodblock emblem on the title-page of A Collection of Apothegmes New and Old, by the Right Honourable Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, published in London in 1661, printed by Sarah Griffin for William Lee.

The rose is a priori the emblem of the heart and of love. It is also a symbol of truth and the true human soul, the embodiment of truth. It is used as the symbol of the pure soul or virgin mother whose child is the radiant light of joy. In the Egyptian Mysteries this pure and shining aspect of the human soul was personified as Isis, whose child is Horus. Their counterparts in the Christian Mysteries are the Virgin Mary and Jesus. In the Greek and Roman Mysteries this pure and shining aspect of the human soul was personified as Persephone, the child of Demeter. Persephone’s child is Dionysus, also known as Bacchus. Demeter, Persephone and Dionysus represent respectively Harmony, Beauty and Joy—three states of the human soul—the one giving birth to the other in succession. Once harmony is achieved, beauty can follow, and beauty gives rise to joy. All this depends on one’s capacity to love and to express true heart-felt love in action. For one’s heart to blossom like a rose, allegorically speaking, is the same as setting one’s heart on fire with love, which is probably why the rose and fire are sometimes equated. To become all heart, all love, all rose, is the great goal of mankind. The full-blown rose is thus the emblem of the illumined master soul.

The rose in this emblem is actually composed of two roses, one within the other, each with a heart and three main concentric circles of petals. The outer rose has a square heart, the inner rose has a circular heart. In this way the four alchemical elements (earth, water, air and fire) are suggested, together with the idea of inner and outer, or child within the womb. The number of main petals in the outer rose is 22 (i.e. 6 + 8 + 8), whilst that of the inner rose is 19 (i.e. 8 + 6 + 5). In the Baconian Simple Cipher the numbers 22 and 19 denote the letters X and T respectively. Both these letters are symbolic of the cross.

The rose as depicted is set within a square box or frame. The square is a symbol of the temple and of the four-square foundation of all things. Its basis is the cross, symbol of the light and law of God; thus the rose is shown, in a veiled way, as blooming upon the cross—a Rosicrucian image. Contained within the square frame is a geometry of proportion known as ad quadratum, the basis of mandala and temple design, upon which the illustration of the rose is constructed. The geometry is that of the circle within the square, and square within the circle, which can theoretically be drawn as a series ad infinitum but is normally drawn to a specific and meaningful number of concentric circles and squares. (The design of the Shakespeare Globe Theatre, for instance, utilises this.) In this Baconian emblem three circles, each with their enclosed squares, establish the geometric design of the outer rose—the outermost circle of the three being the circle enclosed by the square of the emblem’s frame, and the innermost square defining the square heart of the outer rose, its fire element. The inner rose can then be seen to be the quintessence of light that is to be found within the heart fire of the outer rose, just as the flame of a lighted candle has its light.

The diagonals of the frame, drawn to the corners of the inner square, divide the temple square into four segments surrounding a central fifth segment, which is a standard mandalic representation of the four alchemical elements and their quintessence, and a squared version of the Wheel of Life, or Wheel of Fortune, or Wheel of Time. This partly hidden pattern, together with that of the ad quadratum design, forms a traditional mandala of cosmic harmony or order—i.e. the goddess Demeter, whose daughter Persephone is represented by the rose of beauty, in whom is light.

© Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999