Collection of Military Machines with the Alphabet of Trithemius

APOLOGY

With this consideration in mind, we have had this booklet printed, as it is useful to the public: to serve as a remedy for a present evil, an antidote to poison, a utility for urgent necessity, and a defense against the efforts of the enemies of the Holy Church and the Catholic faith. By this proposition, we exclude from the use of our labor all those who will not be restrained within the bounds and limits of a holy and laudable discretion, and those who do not wish to use it for the same end as we do—which is for the glory of God and the advancement of the faith. We banish from its use all thieves, traitors, willful murderers, abusers, seducers, and pitiless people, who, having only lucre lucre: monetary gain, often used here in a derogatory sense of "filthy lucre" as the goal and aim of their designs, use explosives original: "petardent." A pétard was a small bomb used to blow open gates or walls; here it refers to using such devices for criminal burglary. by night, rob boldly, pillage recklessly, force entry stubbornly, and kill too cruelly: all to iniquitously fill their insatiable purses with stolen money that in no way belongs to them.

These are the reasons that have absolutely resolved us to bring to light this collection of artifices artifices: a technical term for military inventions, particularly incendiary devices or "fireworks" used in siege warfare. Would to God that a holy concord might so unite Christian Princes that—abandoning all internal, civil, or domestic wars, and razing their foundations entirely—a holy peace might be universal to them. And may a sincere union so ally them together that they come to live in Unity of Faith, Religion, and Law: having but one Shepherd and one Fold A biblical reference to John 10:16, "there shall be one fold, and one shepherd," often used to argue for Catholic religious hegemony..

B 2