Ornate woodcut headpiece featuring elaborate scrolling foliage and symmetrical decorative motifs.

DISCOURSE

OF THE TRANSLATOR

UPON SELF-MOVING

MACHINES.

Small decorative typographical ornament with floral and scroll motifs.

Decorative initial letter 'L' set in a square frame featuring a mythical beast entwined in foliate scrollwork.

HAVING translated from the Greek tongue the Book of Hero of Alexandria on Self-Moving Machines, it seemed incumbent upon us to offer some discourse concerning their nature, antiquity, purpose, and inventors; and also to say something regarding the history of Hero himself, which, by reason of its antiquity, is most obscure and has caused many great men to fall into error. I say, then, that among the divisions made of the sciences subordinate to Mathematics, there is that part or species which takes its name from machines and is called Mechanics, or the Machinative art; for mathematical demonstrations do not always treat of the proper accidents of quantities abstracted from matter, but at times are applied to sensible subjects and demonstrate the wonders of certain effects that occur therein. Thus do the demonstrations of perspective; thus those which account for the various appearances of images in mirrors; and thus also those which demonstrate the source of that multiplied force—