PREFACE

TO THE READER.

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A wide horizontal woodcut ornament featuring symmetrical scrolling foliage, flowers, and fruit, centered around a small mask or face.

A large historiated decorative initial 'C' depicting a seated scholar at a desk, surrounded by books, symbolizing the labor of study described in the text.

All things are subject to death.

The works of the learned perish over the length of time.

Since it has been arranged by a perpetual and plainly unchangeable law of nature, Dear Reader, that nothing is born immortal, and that all things which have at any time had their origin in this hemisphere must be subject to their own destruction; it truly could not be otherwise than that even the most distinguished monuments original: "monumenta" — here referring to the written works and intellectual legacies of scholars. of the most learned men should be subject to the same necessity of perishing as all other things. For even if God, that supreme Craftsman of all things, and His minister, Nature, wished that nothing should be born more lasting or more vigorous than these works, and that they should least of all fear the injury of time: nevertheless, they have set a limit even for them. They willed that they be born under the same law, so that they might grow obsolete through the vice of age and be swept headlong into ruin by the blind accidents of wars, fires, and other injuries. When I consider all these things as being only too true, and reflect a little more deeply on the causes of such great disasters, there finally came to my mind
In the Catiline War.

Greed is the root of all evils.

that golden sentiment of Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86–35 BCE), a Roman historian who wrote about the conspiracy of Catiline., which he put forth concerning greed as the material of all malice and depravity: that it is greed which overturns faith, integrity, and all other noble arts. For that first age—the nurse and cultivator of all arts and virtues among the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans—flourished and stood in its full vigor for as long as Kings, Princes, and other men lived content with their own state. They did not seek the property of others, nor step beyond the boundaries of their own dominion, nor provoke others to war for the sake of enlarging their kingdom, nor gape at the accumulation of things through right or wrong. Instead, fostering peace at home, they bestowed the highest honor upon the inventors and cultivators of good disciplines and other virtues, and offered them the most ample rewards. But after that monstrous plague—greed, I mean—invaded the souls of men, they began to prefer wealth, which is the incitement of evils, over virtues; to neglect and hold of no account all honorable arts and those skilled in them; and to focus only on enlarging the borders of their fields, extending their city limits, and encumbering themselves solely with the accumulation of riches.

Book 14, in the introduction.

But truly, those men have seemed to me to deserve true and solid glory who, by their own labor and expense, adorn and amplify their Country and the Commonwealth. Above all, however, are those who apply themselves so that the writings of the ancients may be brought to light by their labor, and propagated by their own expenses for the never-perishing memory of posterity—the number of whom is certainly most rare. For this reason, our most eloquent Pliny Pliny the Elder, author of the Naturalis Historia. complains that of the many offspring of nature which were most well-known to the ancients, not even a memory survives in his own day. He wonders greatly that, given the majesty and the expanded Empire of the Roman People, not only those things which the ancients knew, but even those things which were hidden from them, ought to be known.
The happiness of the ancients in knowing natural things.

The honor of the knowledge of natural things among the ancients.

He asserts that those men were happy and blessed because they were able to search out the secrets of nature with very little labor; but that he and his contemporaries were unhappy and wretched because of their increased labor, since they were forced to hand down to posterity not only what had been lost due to the changed morals of men, but also those things which were then new. How much honor and what price the knowledge of these things held among the most ancient kings and wise men is spoken of everywhere in the monuments of all the classic writers. Lest we waste time in reviewing them all, I add only a few here,
The generosity of Alexander the Great toward Aristotle.

beginning with the generosity of that Great Alexander, King of the Macedonians. It is well known that he not only rebuilt the homeland for the sake of Aristotle and (as Pliny says) mixed a kind testimony of spirit with such great clarity of things, but also brought the greatest help to him as he investigated the sacred mysteries and causes of nature, lest such diligent study and most honorable discipline should lack its own rewards.
How many books Aristotle wrote on Animals.

Book 8, chapter 16.

How great a thing it is that when he composed those fifty books on animals, which were called by the Greeks polytalanta biblia original: "πολυτάλαντα βιβλία" — "many-talent books," referring to the massive cost of their production. A "talent" was a very large unit of currency., eight hundred talents were spent on them, according to the testimony of Athenaeus. Nor will this seem incredible to us if only we give credit to Pliny, who reports that several thousand men throughout the tract of all Asia and Greece were ordered to obey him—namely, those who lived by hunting, fowling, and fishing, and those who had care of menageries, herds, fish-ponds, and aviaries—so that nothing anywhere in the world might be unknown to such a great man.
The Roman Emperors highly valued searchers of the nature of things.

We read that the Roman Emperors thereafter also not only treated this science with the highest honor, but even (as Galen reports) sought out at great expense books in which plants, animals, or any other natural things were depicted or discussed, and also men who could explain them.
The generosity of Emperor Antoninus toward Oppian.

The Emperor Antoninus, son of Severus, Better known as Caracalla. exercised a primary and distinguished generosity toward Oppian A Greek poet who wrote about fishing and hunting. on account of the poem he composed about animals; not only did he remit his father's exile, but he even ordered that as many gold pieces be counted out to him as there were verses in the poem. Gladdened by these gifts, the Poet wrote out his poem in golden characters;
Why the song of Oppian was called "golden."

and for that reason, as well as for its elegance and excellence, it was rightly and deservedly called "golden." What shall we say of the familiarity of Nerva and Hadrian with Aelian, of Vespasian with Pliny, of Trajan with Plutarch, and of many other Emperors and Kings with others skilled in this knowledge? Familiarity, I say? Rather, we must proclaim in every age the bestowal of the highest honors and the magnificence shown toward them.
Why many wrote about natural things.

From this, undoubtedly, it happened that many most learned men, driven partly by admiration of nature and partly by the rewards offered, most diligently wrote histories—some about plants, others about animals, and others about some other offspring of nature.
Praise of Pliny.

Among these, to pass over others, Pliny is worthy of the greatest praise; gathering all the best things from the better authors, he wove together a complete natural history in thirty-seven books. We would have no author whom we could compare with him, if, had a longer life been given by God, he had been able to revise certain things and apply his judgment to them. Since these things are so, the reason is at hand why the ancients valued this science so highly: in which, if Pliny found many things that in his...