Roger Bacon (c. 1219-1292), also known by the scholastic accolade “Doctor Mirabilis”, was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. Student of Alchemy and occult sciences, he was a great protagonist of the cultural, sapiential and scientific scene of the English Middle Ages. In the early modern era, he was regarded as a wizard and particularly famed for the story of his mechanical or necromantic brazen head. He is sometimes credited (mainly since the 19th century) as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method, along with his teacher Robert Grosseteste. Bacon applied the empirical method of Ibn Al-Haytham to observations in texts attributed to Aristotle, and discovered the importance of empirical testing when the results he obtained were different from those that would have been predicted by the Greek philosopher.

Charles Sheppard’s pamphlet The Famous History of the Learned Friar Roger Bacon was published in London in 1802. It is a short but interesting and suggestive biography, with surprisingly emphasized and mythicized tones, of the great English medieval scholar.