GUIDUBALDO

OF THE MARCHES

OF MONTE,

PREFACE.

The mechanical faculty has always been held as admirable not only by the unskilled, but also by the learned. For Aristotle, in the beginning of his Mechanical Questions, asserted that there are two kinds of things that draw men into admiration; one of which pertains to those things which indeed proceed from nature, yet whose immediate causes lie hidden; the other, however, looks to those things which are done beyond nature and by art; by which nature seems to be overcome (although it too brings much momentum to overcoming itself) and that which cannot come into the light by the forces of nature happens to be done by art; and it excites even greater admiration for this reason, that art, as a rival of nature, as if fighting against nature, overcomes it and seems to inflict force upon it itself; the cause of which operation, once known, also breeds admiration; since it appears quite small for the production of so great a work. It is indeed a wonder, the mastery of the art itself, since it is so powerful that it attempts to produce effects contrary to nature, effects to which, unless they are so subjected to the senses that they can be almost touched and seen, faith would hardly be given; and this, even when known and persuaded to us, cannot be without admiration. The architect of such wonderful works is the mechanical discipline itself, as much a rival of nature as a powerful antagonist. For this enables heavy things to be lifted upward almost by their own inclination, and great weights by a small