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TO THE MOST CHRISTIAN KING.

your most invincible Crown; and knowing that I have had the fortune of a most magnanimous and glorious King, more so than any who rules Europe among the Christians today, just as I am bound without end to the divine qualities and rarest gifts that Heaven has showered upon You, so I have wished to dedicate to your most prudent and sacred valor these mathematical—or MechanicalIn the 16th century, 'mechanics' was the branch of mathematics dealing with the design and application of machines.—demonstrations, as we might call them. These I now present most humbly and with all possible reverence, like a small votive offeringoriginal: "voto" — a symbolic gift given to a deity or a powerful figure in gratitude or devotion. consecrated to the golden temple of your immortal virtues. I hope that, beyond bringing you no small pleasure and contentment when You, drawn away for a time from your royal affairs, take delight in reading them and sometimes having them put into operation, they will also easily serve as a great convenience to all your valorous captains and soldiers in facilitating and carrying out your most stupendous undertakings, whenever You, led by your invincible and strenuous valor, present yourself (as is your custom) armed for war. To me, they will serve as a unique pledge and testimony of the observance and most affectionate devotion I bear toward your most gracious and divine Name. And though my eyes are not so blind that they do not see well enough that the lowliness of my own wit cannot sustain the height of your sublime merits, nevertheless, those signal favors which your Royal benevolence has ever brought forth toward me—the singular affection you showed me at La Rochelle (original: "Roccella"). Ramelli served as a military engineer during the Siege of La Rochelle in 1573., while I remained a prisoner in the hands of your enemies for your service, wounded to the point of death; the particular care and protection you had first taken in Paris of my son; and finally the most loving letters you deigned to write me even from Poland, since that vast Kingdom, having heard the cry of your intrepid valor and most prudent judgment (which, with infinite other virtues, reigns in your Royal and Heroic breast), had elected and almost by force led You to be crowned their King Henry III was elected King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1573, reigning briefly before returning to France to claim the French throne in 1574., above so many other Kings and Princes who were competing for that crown, with inexpressible applause and the triumphant joy of those PalatinesThe high-ranking nobles and regional governors of Poland. and all those people. All of which favors from your noble mind, which shall be in every age—and more than ever now are—impressed upon my memory; just as inviolably...