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Roger Bacon
d. 1294
A 13th-century English friar and scholar, this restless thinker became famous for urging careful observation and experiment at a time when much learning relied on authority alone. His writings range across optics, language, mathematics, and the study of nature, which is why later generations often remembered him as an early champion of scientific inquiry.
1 Audiobook
The Mirror of Alchimy
by Roger Bacon
About the author
Born in England around 1214, Roger Bacon studied at Oxford and later in Paris, where he worked within the lively intellectual world of medieval universities. He joined the Franciscan order, but his independent cast of mind and ambitious scholarly projects made his career anything but quiet.
Bacon wrote on many subjects, especially optics, mathematics, language, and natural philosophy. He argued that knowledge should be tested by observation and experience as well as by reasoning, a striking emphasis for his time. His best-known works include the Opus Majus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium, written in the 1260s.
Much about his life remains uncertain, including details of his later years, but he is generally thought to have died around 1292 or 1294. Even with the legends that later grew around him, his real importance lies in his wide curiosity and in the seriousness with which he treated experiment, making him one of the most memorable scholars of the medieval world.