Francis Bacon Research Trust

The Hidden World of Shakespeare

Engraved title-page to the first Latin edition of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of Henry VII, printed in Leyden, Holland, in 1642 by Franc. Hackius. Engraving by Cornelius van Dalen.

The illustration depicts the winged goddess Fortune standing on a globe, her left hand turning a wheel of fortune and her right hand holding a ceremonial salt and a bridle. Her forelock streams out in front of her, blown by the wind of God (or wind of fortune).

Standing beneath Fortune’s right hand are two figures who seem to be helping to both steady and manipulate the goddess—a knight in full armour who holds her hips with both hands, and a bearded nobleman with roses on his shoes and a cap of estate on his head who is holding Fortune’s thighs. This whole group—the two men plus the goddess and the globe—are raised on a dais or stage.

Standing beneath the wheel of fortune are two other men, seemingly mirror images of the first two, but with some important differences. They wear the same head-dresses (the knights wear identical plumed helmets and the noblemen wear identical caps of estate), but otherwise their clothes and what they are each doing are analogous but not exactly the same.

The picture is both symbolic and cryptic. Note, for instance, the ‘left-handedness’ of the illustration. On the heraldic left side of the picture, standing on the ground on the lower level, the nobleman and knight together hold the shaft of a spear which is thrust into the wheel of fortune. On close inspection one can see that the knight, who stands on the left-hand side of the nobleman, wears only one spur, not two, and this is strapped onto his left boot. His sword is slung on his belt on his right-hand side, which means that to use it he has to be left-handed. In addition, his left hand points to the globe and is the only hand which wears a gauntlet.

Behind all the figures and objects in the foreground of the picture is the sea with boats sailing on it, and the sky above. Hanging at the top of the picture is a curtain with the title of the book written on it.

The illustration is both hermetic and cabalistic, depicting vertically the four realms or ‘worlds’ of Creation. These are represented by the land (earth), sea (water), sky (air) and celestial fire (concealed behind the curtain). Horizontally the picture is divided into two halves, the goddess and the two men on the dais on the right-hand of the picture, and the wheel of life with the two other men on the ground on the left-hand side. The centre-line of balance lies between the goddess and the wheel which she turns. The right-hand side is associated with the creative cause, the left-hand side with the phenomena. This also interprets as the higher self (right-hand side) and lower self (left-hand side)—e.g. the immortal soul and its mortal persona and physical body. It can also be understood as Divinity (the goddess) and Philosophy (the wheel), or as the inner and outer aspects of life.

Like the title page illustrations to the 1640 Advancement of Learning and 1645 De Augmentis, this picture illustrates symbolically the six parts of the Great Instauration in their cabalistic arrangement—the group on the dais with Fortune representing Parts I-III, and the group on the ground controlling the wheel of fortune signifying Parts IV-VI. The former are associated with the right-hand solar pillar of Science, or Wisdom, and the latter with the left-hand lunar pillar of Philosophy, or Understanding.