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“Francis Bacon’s Unrecognised Cambridge Manuscript and The Taming of The Shrew”

by A. Phoenix


This academic research paper reveals for the first time an unrecognised Francis Bacon philosophical-scientific manuscript entitled Giardino Cosmografico Cultivato (Cultivated Cosmographical Garden) prefaced by Greek and Latin poems from Lady Anne Cooke Bacon and her three sisters Lady Mildred Cooke Cecil, Lady Elizabeth Cooke Hoby and Lady Katherine Cooke Killigrew. The unique manuscript (Cambridge University MS Li.537) presented as being the work of one Dr Bartholo Sylva (who is not known to have written any other work during his lifetime) is copied out in the fine Italic hand of the Bacon family calligraphist and illuminator Petruccio Ubaldini. This little known figure who spent much time with the Bacon family at Gorhambury and York House and had a long hitherto hidden and obscured relationship with Francis Bacon for more than thirty years is here established for the first time as the model for Petruccio in The Taming of the Shrew. In the play Petruccio pursues Katherine who shares the same Christian name of Bacon’s aunt Katherine Cooke Killigrew, younger sister of Lady Anne Cooke Bacon. In The Taming of the Shrew Katherine has a sister named Bianca from which can be derived the anagrammatic contraction AN BAC that clearly suggests the name Anne Bacon. In the play while able to choose from a countless number of names our supreme poet and dramatist gives Petrucci’s father the name Antonio, the Italian form of the Christian name of Anthony Bacon. He also furnishes Petruccio with several servants who are met with after his marriage to Katherine at his country house two of whom are named Nicholas and Nathaniel the same Christian names of his two elder half-brothers (from Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon’s first marriage) Sir Nicholas and Sir Nathaniel Bacon. Thus hidden in plain sight the controversial comedy The Taming of the Shrew seen for what it is, was a Bacon family affair, a humorous send-up written by the supreme family poet, Francis Bacon.

CAMBRIDGE MANUSCRIPT.pdf

Francis Bacon’s Unrecognised Cambridge Manuscript and The Taming of The Shrew Video by A. Phoenix:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EXMUhRzrOxw