An ornamental woodcut headpiece featuring two seated cherubs (putti) flanking a central decorative mask. The composition is surrounded by symmetrical floral and foliate scrollwork.

TO MY READER.

THOMAS DEMPSTER

primary Professor of Humanities in the Archigymnasium of Bologna.

AMONG those marks of kindness and honor with which the most Illustrious Senate of Bologna has favored me, I should not place in the last rank the fact that, when Johannes Cornelius Uterverius the Belgian—who had been appointed to the custody of that inestimable Treasury, or to speak more truly, the Sanctuary of the Θαυματοφυλακίω [Museum of Wonders] which Ulisse Aldrovandi of eternal fame had bequeathed to the S. P. Q. B.—had departed from the living, they entrusted to me the care of completing so worthy a work. And why should I not count this among the most celebrated labors of my wit? For whether the work itself be regarded, it requires varied erudition and was not to be treated cursorily; or if I consider the merits of Uterverius, they are immense: for that man was most highly instructed in all the sciences, and, to speak truly, Cenſorin. cap. 5. WITHOUT REPROACH, NOT WITHOUT ENVY; or if I value the most honored Vote of the great Senate, it cannot be fully Plin. lib 4. epiſt. 8. estimated that I, a foreigner, was assumed to such a height of dignity. And if it is true that IT IS MOST GRATEFUL, EVEN IN MINOR MATTERS, TO ATTAIN THE JUDGMENT OF A MOST GRAVE PRINCE, how much more grateful ought it to be to have attained the suffrages of not one Prince, but of an entire and most prudent Senate in so arduous a matter? But what is the pinnacle: who would not consider it honorable to himself to be admitted to a share of the cares of ULISSE ALDROVANDI? At the hearing of whose name is perceived whatever greatness or excellence either nobility or literature offers; for indeed, the splendor of his race and his Senatorial blood had few equals and no superiors. His learning was truly beyond belief; for to say nothing of other things, who ever saw in another, or can sufficiently admire in him, such untiring industry, such varied reading, such accurate observations, such keen judgment, such unblinking eyes, such a firm hand? He did not merely surpass any of the ancient writers in the number of books composed by him and the dignity of his works, but he even equaled the vast domains of Nature herself by the extended boundaries of his genius and study; and, to say it once, he is held to have been

Tzetzes Chiliad. 2. cap. 64.

PIOUS, JUST, TRUE, FREE FROM REPROACH.

Let the Egyptians therefore be silent, nor let them boast of their Aedesius; nor let the Emperor Tiberius call that foster-child of his the "Cymbal of the World"; nor let the Heliopolitans extol their Acamathus; and let Augustus Caesar refrain from so immoderately decorating Atius with honors. Here Hieronymus of Cardia claims nothing for himself, nor Timaeus of Tauromenium, nor Potamon, though an impotent Prince might praise him as learned. I shall say it boldly: whatever the ancients or more recent men have touched upon in this kind of study is a fable and is base compared to him; so that he is judged to have absorbed the entire Genius of all learned men and, as it were, to have transfused it into his own nature, Solin. c 34. just as the ἑξακοντάλιθος gem encompasses the virtues of sixty others. Since my name is joined with the surviving fame and never-dying glory of so great a man, who does not see how Tzet. Chiliad. 9. c. 57 honorable it is? I have given my effort—even if excluded from his library—lest I should seem unworthy of such a great judgment of the most favoring Senate; nor indeed have I acted ἀχαρίστως [ungratefully], nor do I care in the least for those whom their own insults have made known; I have performed what I could, I have clung to the footsteps of the immortal ALDROVANDI, and I have yielded to the will of the most prudent Senate. If I have pleased you, it is enough for my prayer and my service. FAREWELL. From yours.