PREFACE

regions, to communicate to me other specimens which I still lack from the class of stones that can be correctly depicted and are worthy of memory. If good men and students of nature do this, and furthermore if they should advise me wherever something in this book might perhaps seem in need of correction, they will encourage me to publish this again—more corrected and enlarged—at another time (once the History of Plants original: "Historia stirpium." Gesner’s massive botanical work, which he considered his primary obligation; he died before it could be fully published. is first finished, with God’s help).

They will also encourage me to add a second book to this first one (in which I have decided to treat extensively the names of stones, gems, metals, and all fossils fossils: from the Latin "fossilis," meaning "dug up." In the 16th century, this term was a broad category for anything extracted from the earth, including minerals, ores, and gems, as well as what we now call paleontological fossils. in various languages, along with their powers and properties original: "viribus eorum facultatibusque." In Renaissance science, this referred to both the physical characteristics and the perceived medicinal or "occult" virtues inherent in natural objects., both medicinal and otherwise, and their universal nature).

As for what concerns the drawn figures, since I am the first to have attempted to present illustrated stones in a volume dedicated to them, good readers will appreciate this diligence of ours, such as it is; and if perhaps they do not easily recognize some [of the figures], they should [attribute it] not to us, but