THE COMPENDIUM ON THE SOUL BY AVICENNA,

THE PRINCE OF PHYSICIANS, RECENTLY

TRANSLATED FROM ARABIC INTO

LATIN BY ANDREAS

OF BELLUNO.

Library stamp: National Library of Rome, Vittorio Emanuele. ## TO NUH, THE KING OF KHORASAN. Nuh ibn Mansur, a Samanid Emir who ruled Khorasan and Transoxiana in the late 10th century.

PREFACE.

THAT beginning of mortal works has always been most honorable, by which we give thanks to Him who has bestowed upon us the power of giving thanks. For if it were not the custom for the needy and lowly to flee to the wealthy and to princes, surely the needy and lowly would lose all protection from the wealthy and from princes; furthermore, there would be no union between commoners and leaders, nor any hope for brute animals and their shepherds. The weak, oppressed by force, would not be preserved by the strong; nor would the inferior receive their life from the superior; nor would the foolish be instructed or made more learned by the wise. Since, therefore, men have been accustomed to observe the contrary, my mind has undertaken this bold venture: to approach the Prince by his leave and address him. And I offer him a gift pertaining to philosophy, and all the more boldly because it was sufficiently clear to me that men love nothing so much as wisdom original: "sapientiam"; and that you yourself have given all your study and mind to the most eminent disciplines of philosophy and wisdom; and being occupied in no other thing, you have made the greatest progress, so much so that you excel all other princes in the knowledge of the good arts and in every kind of virtue. Moreover, I approached you with this kind of gift especially because I am so persuaded that no gift can be offered to a prince either more noble or more pleasing than that which leads to a more noble and pleasing virtue, which is called wisdom. As I was searching, however, with the greatest diligence, study, and labor, through the books of the philosophers—