Francis Bacon and the crisis of the palatinate

Given by Samuel Zeitlin, Quentin Skinner Fellow 2026 About the Event In the 2026 Skinner Lecture in Intellectual History since c. 1500, Dr Samuel Garrett Zeitlin will discuss Francis Bacon’s evolving responses to the crisis of the Palatinate through Bacon’s diplomatic correspondence, state papers, essays, natural scientific writings, poetry, and civil histories in response to the onset of what we now refer to as the Thirty Years War. The paper will be introduced by Richard Bourke (Cambridge), with panels chaired by Alexandra Gadja (Oxford) and Jessica Patterson (Cambridge), and papers delivered in response to the lecture by Annabel Brett (Cambridge), Clare Jackson (Trinity Hall, Cambridge), Vera Keller (Oregon), Richard Serjeantson (Trinity College, Cambridge), and Filippo de Vivo (Oxford)