Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Like a Plank of a Shipwreck
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Advancement of Learning, Book II:
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Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.On the source of the phrase "tanquam tabula naufragii" see Anthony Grafton, Worlds Made of Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 137-139.
