"In common with minds of great and comprehensive grasp, his vivid perception of the intimate relationship of the different parts of philosophy, and his desire to raise himself from the dead level of every individual science, induced Bacon to grasp at and embrace the whole."[93] In truth, the encyclopaedic spirit was in the air throughout the thirteenth century.

It was the century of books bearing the significant titles of Summa, or Universitas, or Speculum.
The same spirit revived towards the middle of the sixteenth century.

In 1541 a book was published at Basel by one Ringelberg, which first took the name of Cyclopaedia, that has since then become so familiar a word in Western Europe.

This was followed within sixty years by several other works of the same kind.

The movement reached its height in a book which remained the best in its order for a century.