Product Description
1928. Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 0766126048. Volume 2 of 2. (This description is for both volumes.) Contains much of Bacon's principle writings in mathematics, optics, experimental science, and philosophy. Bacon is regarded as the first modern scientist.This is one of his major works with 8 plates and 72 illustrations. ... Read more

Product Description
The Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious tome discovered in 1912 by the English book dealer Wilfrid Michael Voynich, has puzzled scholars for a century.A small six inches by nine inches, but over two hundred pages long, with odd illustrations of plants, astrological diagrams, and naked women, it is written in so indecipherable a language and contains so complicated a code that mathematicians, book collectors, linguists, and historians alike have yet to solve the mysteries contained within.However, in The Friar and the Cipher, the acclaimed bibliophiles and historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone describe, in fascinating detail, the theory that Roger Bacon, the noted thirteenth-century, pre-Copernican astronomer, was its author and that the perplexing alphabet was written in his hand.Along the way, they explain the many proposed solutions that scholars have put forth and the myriad attempts at labeling the manuscript's content, from Latin or Greek shorthand to Arabic numerals to ancient Ukrainian to a recipe for the elixir of life to good old-fashioned gibberish.As we journey across centuries, languages, and countries, we meet a cast of impassioned characters and case-crackers, including, of course, Bacon, whose own personal scientific contributions, Voynich author or not, were literally and figuratively astronomical.

The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderfully entertaining and historically wide-ranging book that is one part The Code Book, one part Possession, and one part The Da Vinci Code and will appeal to bibliophiles and laypeople alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Roger Bacon and his frantic times
Fascinating story of bizarre 13th (or is it 15th? Or 17th?) manuscript written in an as-yet undeciphered cipher (sorry!) and attributed with some dispute to Roger Bacon.The husband and wife Goldstones trace the history of the manuscript as best as it is known, including a detailed history of Roger Bacon and his frantic times.

Similar to Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery which I recently read, the authors spend more time on the history of the era than on the topic in the title.While the sensational title sells the book, the background research fleshes out the story.

Interestingly enough, the manuscript has been subject to some computerized analysis with no success as yet.So much for the power of computerized cryptanalysis.

Well written but lacking sincerity
Some of the exhastive and unnecessary "history lesson" is very well written, and there is evidence of considerable research. There are some fascinating studies of certain personalities.
I wish the author(s) could have let go of the anti-religious sentiments for a while and tried to look at the history of western thought as not totally oriented toward demonstratable knowledge and the scientific outlook.
He tries to pit philosophies/outlooks against one another but does not explain how they were synthesized to create something new.
The presentation of the R.C. Church is outrageously stereotypical, (the word dogma is used over and over again) revealing very little knowledge of theologic principles the proper mode of examining medieval history. The author relies so much on his own philosophic lense that it truly cripples what otherwise could have been a fantastic opus. It is not necessary to lay aside scientific rationalism in order to give a square and balanced review of the Church, who, after all, invented the "University"

I gave it only two stars only in order to lower its overall rating. This is retribution for having not been a sincere historian.

The good, the bad and the misleading
Without a doubt, this book is the most difficult to rate of any I have reviewed so far. The book is advertised as a tale of Roger Bacon and the Voynich Manuscript, both fascinating topics. But as previous reviewers have noted, the authors frequently go off on tangents, presumably in an effort to provide added context. Some of these digressions are riveting; some are distracting. I skipped several pages and even a whole chapter without losing any of the storyline. More than once I found myself asking, "How does this relate to Roger Bacon or the Voynich Manuscript?" The authors do eventually tie everything back to one of those subjects, but seldom with an economy of words.

I appreciated the conversational style the authors used in telling the story. Their flippant tone, on the other hand, made me wince. Think Thomas Cahill-type narrative without the pleasant aftertaste.

Ulimately, what soured me on this book was the apparent ax the authors have to grind with the Catholic Church and the degree to which it infected their writing. On page 42, they write that scholasticism "matured into the most powerful tool for maintaining and perpetuating doctrine that the Church had ever seen." The scholastics "remained uninterested in uncovering new knowledge, only in cementing the unlikely but now solid bond between Aristotle's logic and the Bible's revelation." That's pure, unvarnished B.S. Please compare those statements with the following:

"It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactory definition of Scholasticism that would apply to all the thinkers to whom the label has been affixed. ... The Scholastics, by and large, were committed to the use of reason as an indispensable tool in theological and philosophical study, and to dialectic ... as the method of pursuing issues of intellectual interest." (Thomas E. Woods Jr., "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, p. 58)

"What made it possible for Western civilization to develop science and the social sciences in a way that no other civilization had ever done before? The answer, I am convinced, lies in a pervasive and deep-seated inquiry that was a natural consequence of the emphasis on reason that began in the Middle Ages. ... It was quite natural for scholars ... to probe into subject areas that had not been explored before, as well as to discuss possibilities that had not previously been entertained." (Edward Grant, "God and Reason in the Middle Ages" p. 356)

The Goldstones argue passionately that Roger Bacon got hosed and history never gave him his due. That's probably true. But their cri de coeur glosses over the fact that, slight or no slight, Roger Bacon was a monk and therefore a committed adherent to Catholicism. Also noteworthy is that Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is glorified in this book, which stands in stark contrast to his portrayal by at least one modern biographer. In short, if you'd like an at-times-gripping detective story/biography and an introduction to a plethora of historical luminaries, cherry pick from this book. If you are committed to learning the truth, get both sides and take "The Friar and The Cipher" with a bushel of salt.

Strange Book
The book is about a manuscript discovered in 1918. It is a fascinating manuscript written in a complicated cipher with eclectic illustrations in the margins. The most likely author of this manuscript is Roger Bacon. The authors then spend most of the book putting Roger Bacon in his cultural milieu and summarizing intellectual history in Western Europe until the 20th century. Don't get me wrong, they tell the story in a fun way, but they don't even mention the manuscript again until page 200. Then the authors detail a very tentative hypothesis of how the book ended up where it did. The authors can not even state with certainty whether this manuscript is Bacon's or not. They used words like "probably" or " most likely." I became bored. The authors tell an okay story, the story is well paced or even too fast, they obviously know history, but when it becomes apparent this is all conjecture, I lost interest. They simplify the history too much. They strain to make the scholasticism of Aquinas and the scientific method of the Bacons (Roger and and later Francis) the major conflict in the intellectual history of mankind. I didn't buy all their conclusions and commentary.

In other words, they cover far too much: too much history and too much philosophy. They did not spend enough time on the manuscript. I felt cheated. The title is very misleading.

Is this about philosophy or about a book?
Don't you hate it when a book description isn't completely accurate?While I wouldn't necessarily say that's true in the case of Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone's The Friar and the Cipher, it does come very close.Ostensibly, the book is about the Voynich Manuscript, a document that has never been deciphered and which many believe was written by the noted thinker Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century.There has been a lot of controversy about this manuscript and its possible authorship, with many people believing that there's no way that Roger Bacon could have written it, or that it must be a hoax.It appears to be in some sort of code with strange illustrations in the margins.And yes, the book does discuss the great debate about this, detailing the many attempts to decode it and the many theories about who might have written it.Was it all a hoax committed by a friend of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's trusted advisor, back in the late sixteenth century?

Of course, the problem is that this debate begins on page 223 of the edition I have.The book runs just over 300 pages, which presents kind of a problem.The rest of the book is a history of Western thought and the constant struggle between science and religion in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic church was all-powerful.It gives a very detailed history of Roger Bacon, supposedly to give the background to the debate on the manuscript.It also details his philosophical adversaries, as well as demonstrating how Europe came out of the Dark Ages due to the rediscovery of some of Aristotle's works.In fact, the book goes all the way back to Aristotle himself, and his differences with Plato.

All of this is fascinating stuff, and if you're in the mood for a discourse on logical thought and its struggles to get through religious dogma, then this book is definitely for you.I know I enjoyed it immensely.I just wish it had been better advertised as such.It covered a lot of ground that I was slightly familiar with, yet for which I had no real details.The Saracen empire was stretching into Spain at this point, and many of its scholars were well aware of Aristotle and his ideas of Logic.In fact, many of these scholars faced their own persecution from conservative Imams and other Moslem leaders, as the Goldstones show us in this book.As Europeans began to push back against this invasion, parts of Spain were recaptured, and these Moslem studies of Aristotle began to spread over Europe.

The Gladstones do a really effective job in giving this history in a concise, yet detailed format.I never felt like they were glossing over anything and I found these sections extremely valuable.If you've studied Western philosophy or the history of the Dark Ages, than this may not be new to you, but I found it intriguing.The authors then give a short history of the Dominican and the Franciscan orders of the Church, and how opposed to each other they were.They give the story of Francis of Assissi and how the Franciscans were formed, as well as the Dominicans and their noted scholar, Thomas Aquinas, and they discuss the university system as it existed in Europe at the time.Then they begin to delve deeply into Roger Bacon's biography.That's when the focus of the book begins to shift.However, it doesn't move that far at first.They use the differences between Thomas' thought and Bacon's to highlight the differences between those using Aristotle's logic and those using Church dogma, and it's a very enlightening section of the book.

Finally, we get to the manuscript itself, and where it may have gone (as it disappears from history periodically).Unfortunately, this is where the book really begins to drag.We are given fairly detailed passages on cryptology as many twentieth-century cryptologists try to decode the manuscript.I found I was much more interested in the discussions on Western thought than I was in the decoding of the manuscript, especially after remembering that nobody has ever solved the riddle.Some of these stories are interesting, but I found my interest flagging as I read about what happened to these various people.

Which brings me to the ultimate problem with this book and how it was marketed (and even titled).The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderful book on Western philosophy.However, there's nothing really new in the book when it comes to the manuscript.It doesn't take sides in the controversy, only saying that it seems likely that Bacon did write it.They raise questions, but they don't really provide anything new to anybody who has any knowledge of the subject.The book seems to be a way to gather a bunch of different sources into one volume, sort of a "this is where we're at" kind of thing.

It also is almost a love letter to Roger Bacon.They ferociously defend him against any of his critics who claim he wasn't what his fans make him out to be.He has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, and the Goldstones bring it all up and knock it down.Who's right and who's wrong is not for me to judge, as this is my first exposure to Bacon.However, one positive aspect of this defense is that they do acknowledge that the criticism *could* be right, but that it's misplaced.Bacon may not have been the leading light his fans make him out to be, but it was his methods that made him special, regardless of the ideas themselves.And perhaps that could be a defense of the book as well.The Friar and the Cipher may not be as special as it could be regarding the Voynich manuscript, but the method of getting there is extremely well done.

David Roy ... Read more

Product Description
Edited by John Henry Bridges.This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1900 edition by Williams and Norgate, London. ... Read more

Product Description
Legend may have transformed the thirteenth-century English friar Roger Bacon into the Faust-like sorcerer Doctor Mirabilis, but he stands today in high regard as Europe's first great pioneer in the field of science. Bypassing the vicissitudes of Bacon's reputation, this definitive new biography by science writer Brian Clegg places the medieval monastic firmly in the turbulent and contentious intellectual atmosphere of his day. It also finds in Bacon's attempt to reconcile, or at least acknowledge, the variant methods and means of science and theology a quest that places him well ahead of his intellectual times. For Bacon brought to his inquiry into the nature of things his gifts not only as a lucid observer of natural phenomena, rigorous experimenter, empirical thinker, and gifted mathematician but as a theologian and philosopher as well. In his search for truth he would, like Galileo, suffer imprisonment rather than sacrifice his intellectual integrity. From Bacon's popularity as a teacher at Oxford and Paris, through his innovations in calendar reform, his experiments in optics, his designs for a flying machine, and, most famously, his development of the principle of inductive experimental science, this illuminative volume unfolds the story of a brilliant career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Enlightening Biography of Bacon
Roger Bacon was the most important scientist of his time, his life spanned from 1214 to 1294.Though living in the darkness of the Middle Ages, he shed a tremendous amount of light on the understanding of science in his day, and spent over 20 years imprisoned for his writings which challengd much of the supersitition of the church at that time.

Connecting The Dots
So little is known about the real life of Friar Bacon that the author is obliged to make up many details of his life, based on speculation and inference.The stories feel like they could be credible, but one is reminded that the subtitle of this book is "A Life of Roger Bacon" not "THE Life of Roger Bacon."

In order to fill out a scanty bushel of facts the author delves into Medieval politics, alchemy, early church struggles et cetera, giving the reader a fairly good grounding in the times of Roger Bacon.Nevertheless, I think it would have been very possible to delve deeper into Bacon's five known works to dissect where he anticipated Renaissance science, where he hewed to Bible-based orthodoxy, and where he went off on flights of fancy.The analysis of his works -- which ARE known -- is a bit light in the loafers.

Yes and No.
I really wanted to like this book: Mr. Clegg obviously has a deep respect for his subject and is eager to share it with the reader. Unfortunately, a combination of sometimes sloppy writing skills and a dearth of information add up to a mostly mediocre biography. When I say information is scarce, I mean it: very, very little is known about the specifics of Bacon's life; the vast majority of this book is conjecture. We know Bacon went from A to B to A to C, and that's more or less it--Clegg sees fit to fill in the details again and again. This would be okay if it weren't pure guesswork most of the time. On top of this, particularly toward the end, the writing style becomes strained and stretched out like a college term-paper. It's as if the author is grabbing at straws to convince you that Bacon was indeed the first scientist. It's a shame that these problems overshadow what is otherwise a very interesting book on a very interesting subject from a very interesting time period. I hope one day we'll see a major biography of this strange, precocious man with the proper research to back it up. Until then, The First Scientist will do, if you keep in mind its flaws.

Although I really do love the book design.

The First Scientist-A Life of Roger Bacon by Brian Clegg
This is an excellent work for historians and science buffs.
It describes a friar who lived in the 13th century. Roger Bacon
predicted horseless carriages and telescopes. He is one of the
first scientists to link science with the experimental method.
Early in life, he studied astronomy, grammar, mathematics,
music, logic and rhetoric. He presented a fairly detailed
earth map. The work describes his incarceration for teachings
contrary to the orthodoxy of the day. This work would make
a perfect class project for students in grammar or high school.

Amazing introduction to an amazing man
The great thing about this book is it's not over-academic like practically everything else I've seen about Bacon, but rather gives a real insight into the man and his times. If you are at all interested in science, where it comes from and the people who made it happen this book should be on your have-to-buy list! ... Read more

Product Description
In many ancient Books there are found many definitions of this Art, the intentions whereof we must consider in this Chapter. For Hermes said of this Science: Alchemy is a Corporal Science simply composed of one and by one, naturally conjoining things more precious, by knowledge and effect, and converting them by a natural commixtion into a better kind. A certain other said: Alchemy is a Science, teaching how to transform any kind of metal into another: and that by a proper medicine, as it appeared by many Philosophers' Books. Alchemy therefore is a science teaching how to make and compound a certain medicine, which is called Elixir, the which when it is cast upon metals or imperfect bodies, does fully perfect them in the very projection. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Unlikely his solution is correct
The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious late mediæval text, written in an unknown script in an unknown language or cypher.It reads as if written fluently, not by someone who was painfully calculating each next character, but by someone who understood what he was writing.It looks like a curious herbal or alchemical treatise, full of diagrams of unknown plants, unknown constellations, and elaborate networks of plumbing inhabited by plump, naked, crowned women.The text seems to contain all the redundancies expected in a natural language and then some. It can be traced back as far as the hands of Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit polymath, who was but the first of many to have tried and failed to read the text.

For a time, this book was the best general overview of the history of the Voynich Manuscript.It still is a good one, though it has been superseded in that regard by Mary d'Imperio's -The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma.-

Brumbaugh proposes in this book a partial "solution" that yields texts like ILEXER ILUS YUS PURUS POURLY ILUY YJSUUS PURUS PLUS URICUS.These decipherments have the merit of seeming to read like the repetitious text of the manuscript itself.He interprets this text, though, as "The Elixir is a game, purely, purely a pure game; and European."Even if he has deciphered the script, no doubt you can probably think of other interpretations on your own.

His method of reading seems to involve first turning the script into Arabic numerals, reading those numerals as any of several possible letters in the Latin alphabet.He got this by forcing letters into the script based on his attempts to identify some of the plants in the diagrams, and then attempting to extract a method of reading the characters.His decypherments are occasionally tantalising, but if this is the actual text behind the symbols, there doesn't seem to be much point in further effort.The readings appear to be flawed by the polyvalence of the script he believes he sees. ... Read more

Product Description
Roger Bacon, the medieval natural philosopher who broke new ground in promoting scientific method, produced the encyclopedic Opus Majus or 'Greater Work' in the mid-thirteenth century. This 1897 publication in two volumes was the first complete edition of the work to appear in print. Written at the request of Pope Clement IV, the Opus Majus is the most significant and most influential of Bacon's works, containing his observations of the natural world and theories on knowledge acquisition. Bacon's text appears in the original Latin, and Bridges includes a substantial introduction and brief analysis of each chapter in English, as well as extensive footnotes and an analytical table to aid the reader. Volume 1 contains the first four parts of Bacon's treatise with sections on 'Wisdom and Truth', 'The connection of Philosophy with Theology', 'The Study of Language', and 'Mathematical Science'. ... Read more

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Introduction-
Chapter I-
Of and against fictitious Appearances and Invocation of Spirits-
Chapter II-
Of Charms, Figures, and their Use-
Chapter III-
Of the force of Speech, and a Check to Magick-
Chapter IV-
Of admirable Artificial Instruments-
Chapter V-
Of Perspective Artificial Experiments-
Chapter VI-
Concerning strange Experiments-
Chapter VII-
Of Retarding the Accidents of Old age, and Prolongation of Life-
Chapter VIII-
Of obscuring the Mysteries of Art and Nature-
Chapter IX-
Of the Manner to make the Philosophers Egge-
Chapter XI-
Of the same Subject another way-

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The Mirror of Alchemy Composed by the Famous Friar Roger Bacon Sometime Fellow of Martin College and Brasen-nase College in Oxenforde; Roger Bacon's Letter; and Root of the World and the Magical Letter. ... Read more

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Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art and Nature and the Nullity of Magic together with notes and an account of Bacon's Life and Work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Roger Bacon -A True Renaissance Man!
This letter focuses on Bacon's interest and involvment in the occult and alchemical fields but it is only a small part of this amazing man's life.I bought the book for the occult references but received so much more! ... Read more

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David Lindberg presents the first critical edition of the text of Roger Bacon's classic work Perspectiva, prepared from Latin manuscripts, accompanied by a facing-page English translation, critical notes, and a full study of the text. Also included is an analysis of Bacon's sources, influence, and role in the emergence of the discipline of perspectiva. ... Read more

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The motorcycle fuels the senses like no other form of transportation. Whether you like the romanticism of the early pioneering days, the Easy Rider lifestyle of the Harley-Davidson, the high-revving performance of the superbike, or the urban chic of the scooter, the wheeled machine has universal appeal. The very earliest motorcycles were steam driven. The oldest that survives is a French "boneshaker" from 1869, its steam engine mounted alarmingly under the saddle. It is a long way from today's global motorcycle market, dominated by Japanese makes. In between, an industry was born and motorcycles became a way of life, not just a mode of transportation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Exactly As Advertised
The "Encyclopedia of Motorcycles" book I ordered was delivered on time and in exactly the advertised condition.

Motorcycles by the Thousands!
I never knew how much I didn't know about motorcycles until I looked through this big, slick book. More than 2,300 motorcycle manufacturers are listed. It is great fun to look through this, checking out the more than 1,200 photos to see old favorite models,odd ducks, plus the hundreds of bikes from manufacturers I never knew existed. (Where in the world are the skeletons of all these old, strange bikes buried? You'd think they must decompose like bodies!) Spans more than 100 years of motorcylce history. I'm not giving this book five stars because there aren't photos of every bike mentioned, and many manufacturers don't get any photos and only a small write up. Even for the bigger name manufacturers, the write-ups are not comprehensive and overlook a lot of models, so don't expect this to be "definitive"or especially technical. But it is still a joy to behold. To have a more comprehensive encyclopedia of motorcycles would take many volumes. This is a nice "coffee-table" overview of motorcycle history with lots of interesting bikes to ponder and a fair amount of information. It is the kind of book that may inspire some people into collecting old bikes. It is hard to imagine any motorcycle afficionado who wouldn't get some kick out of this. A worthy gift. ... Read more

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THIS 20 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Roger Bacon's Letter, by Roger Bacon. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592782. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume deals with the philosophy and thought of Roger Bacon. It is aneffort to bring Roger Bacon studies up to date. Attention is given to a widerange of topics: Bacon's life and works, Bacon's contribution to thetrivium (language studies) and the quadrivium (scientific-mathematicalstudies), his notion of a science, his moral philosophy, Bacon's contributionto medicine, alchemy, astrology, Bacon's positions in physics and metaphysics,an up dated bibliography of Bacon studies and a review of the state of BaconManuscripts.The volume situates Roger Bacon in the context of 13th century philosophy andthought, as well as demonstrating his importance for later thinkers.It is expected that it will be a major new contribution to Medieval andRenaissance Studies. ... Read more

Product Description
1928. Contents: Forerunner of Modern Science; Voynich Cipher Manuscript of Roger Bacon, a sketch of its history; Voynich Cipher Manuscript of Roger Bacon, sketch of its contents; Principles of Roger Bacon's Cipher; Following the Clues; Derivation of the Biliteral Alphabets; Script of the Shorthand Cipher; Rules for Deciphering the Texts; Interpretation of the Key; Annular Eclipse of 1290; Great Nebula of Andromeda; Comet of 1723; Cato and Fulvius; Oxford Story; Gunpowder Formula; Vatican Document; Paris Medical Text; Formula for Producing Metallic Copper; Abbreviated Word about the Green Lion; Tables of Values. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more