by Richard Allan Wagner
The word that seems to have loomed most prominently in Francis Bacon’s mind was the 27 letter Latin word honorificabilitudinitatibus (Act 5, Scene 1 of Love’s Labor’s Lost). Although the word had been toyed with by many of Bacon’s predecessors, it was destined to be his magical word—his, and his alone. We can see evidence of his tinkering with roots of the word in his Promus: honoris, honores, honorem, honorificabo, and in his parchment folder (now known as the Northumberland Manuscript) we see honorificabilitudini. Why was Bacon so drawn to the word? What special properties did it possess?
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