ABSTRACT
Robert Boyle came to use Paralipomena as a title for a general repository of data that he had accumulated, and continued to accumulate, to supplement the numerous treatises that he had written and published from the 1660s onwards. To place Paralipomena in context, it is necessary to recall Boyle's almost compulsive accumulation of data throughout his life, a symptom of the Baconian impulse by which he was so deeply influenced. It is also worth noting that Experimenta et Observationes Physicae may have served the same function as Paralipomena in acting as a repository of more or less miscellaneous material deriving from Boyle's workdiaries. The descriptions encapsulate the rationale of the compilation entitled Paralipomena that the various prefaces and contents lists were evidently intended to accompany, in the sense of a compilation which brought together material supplementing a range of works by Boyle, both published and unpublished.
