P R E F A C E

...I have always considered man to be subject to fallacies and errors; I have entreated all the most learned men to refute me if I have not interpreted something faithfully. But what I always feared has happened: that I have fallen upon a most vile and detestable kind of men, who seek a sordid little glory original: "gloriolam"; a diminutive suggesting petty or cheap fame and a common, popular favor from the injury of others, whether just or unjust. Those wounded by their virulent bites do not waste away, but by twisting the venom back upon themselves, these critics instead strike down their own reputation.

A certain Frenchman Jean Bodin (1530–1596), a famous French jurist and writer on demonology who attacked Porta in his work "De la démonomanie des sorciers." in his book on Demon-mania original: "Dæmonomania", considers me a poisonous magician magum veneficum: a sorcerer who uses harmful potions, drugs, or poisons. He thinks this book of mine, published long ago, is worthy of the fire because I wrote about the ointment of witches original: "lamiarum vnguentum". Yet I brought that subject forward only to expose the detestable frauds of demons and hags original: "strigumve", showing how things that happen naturally are misused in superstitions; I had excerpted this from the books of well-regarded theologians. In what have I sinned in this? Why have I earned the name of a poisoner?

But when I inquired of many noble and literate Frenchmen, who deigned to meet with me with the greatest honor, "Who is this man?" they responded that he is a heretic. They said he narrowly escaped danger by leaping headlong from a watchtower on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, a wave of Catholic mob violence directed against Huguenots (French Protestants) in Paris., a day when a slaughter was declared against all such impious men.

Meanwhile, I shall pray to God, the Greatest and Best (as becomes a noble and Christian man), that having converted to the Roman Catholic faith, he himself may not be damned to the fire while still living. Another Frenchman, while unworthily condemning all the learned men of his age, attaches me to them. He thinks only three physicians—his friends—are to be praised as the most learned of our age, among whom he counts himself, even though his book is circulated without the author's name. O immortal God, what sort of trick for capturing praise has this man devised? He who, since...

)( 5