⚠Water staining is visible on the left margin and the bottom edge, though the text remains clearly legible.

But after he had surveyed the Heavens,

Where he both could, and desired to, rest eternally;

So that he might more easily learn to look down upon the Earth,

Which he could not possess forever.

Therefore, whoever you are who lacks these wings,

Beware of flying higher;

Indeed, deliberately abstain even from examining this Journey,

Lest you become a new fable, a new Icarus,

While you neither follow Athanasius, nor overtake him.

The author uses the myth of Icarus to warn that Kircher’s celestial and terrestrial theories are too lofty for the unlearned.

Equipped with these wings for flying,

Not rashly, but to prove himself a Disciple,

He followed the Journey, and in it overtook

Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was a celebrated Jesuit polymath known as the "Master of a Hundred Arts."

GASPAR SCHOTT.

Gaspar Schott (1608–1666), Kircher’s student and assistant, who edited and promoted many of Kircher's works.

And so successfully, that Athanasius himself recognized him as his own,

As an Eagle recognizes its chick;

When he granted to him above all others,

The right to narrate his journey to his own Germany;

Certain that no one would do so more uprightly,

Since no one approached closer to his own understanding.

How uprightly he has done this,

See even from this:

While he wished this Journey, so that it might truly be Kircherian,

To be inscribed to no other

Than the Prelate of the renowned Church of Fulda,

Lord of Buchonia,

Buchonia refers to the Rhön Mountains region around Fulda, Germany.

PRINCE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

JOACHIM;

Joachim von Gravenegg, Prince-Abbot of Fulda from 1644 to 1671.

So that he to whom Athanasius belongs by right of birth,

Kircher was born in Geisa, near Fulda.

To him also belongs Athanasius’s

Journey:

Not so much that Rome, the Head of the World, may recognize

To whom she owes the Athanasius in whom she so triumphs,