the 1645 title page of

Novum Organum Scientiarum

It depicts a galleon passing between the mythical Pillars of Hercules that stand on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, marking the exit from the well-charted waters of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Pillars, as the boundary of the Mediterranean, have been smashed through by Iberian sailors, opening a new world for exploration.   The notion is that Bacon would hope that empirical investigation will, similarly, smash the old scientific ideas and lead to greater understanding of the world and heavens.

(This title page was liberally copied from Andrés García de Céspedes’s Regimiento de Navegación, published in 1606.)

The text in Latin gives the author’s name:

Franc[iscum]. Baconis de Verulamio

(Francis Bacon from Verulam);

his title:

Summi Angliae Cancelsarii

(High Chancellor of England);

the book’s title, note that it’s been expanded to include the word “Scientiarum” (“Scientific”):

Novum Organum Scientiarum.

(New Scientific Organon);

below the illustration, its caption:

Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia.

(from the Old Testament book of Daniel, 12th chapter, 4th verse:
Many shall run to & fro, & knowledge shall be increased. [King James version]   or
Many will travel, & knowledge will be increased.   or
Many will travel, & science will be augmented.);

at the bottom, the printers’s inscription:

LUGD[UNI]. BAT[AVORUM]. Apud Adrianum Wyngaerde[n], et Franciscum Moiardum. 1645.

(LEIDEN, HOLLAND: at the shop of Adrian Wyngaerden & Francis Moiard, 1645).

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