A wide ornamental typographical headpiece consists of repeating floral scrolls and heart-shaped motifs across the top of the page.

Preface/

to the Art-loving Reader.

Among the most excellent and useful inventions which God, the All-Wise, has gifted to the human race, the noble art of Mechanica mechanics is not the least, as some ignorant, insolent wiseacres might presumptuously suggest. Rather, both because of its unavoidable necessity and because of its origin in Geometry geometry and Physic natural philosophy, it has at all times been highly ennobled and therefore rightly held in high esteem and affection by all intelligent people.

Under the term Mechanica, however, we do not mean all kinds of common manual laborers, as these often require very little art, but rather much sour and laborious work and practice. Therefore, one should open the eyes of the intellect a little wider here, considering that we humans in general do not marvel at those things that happen and are governed in an orderly way by nature, to which we are accustomed; but we marvel much more at those things that are brought about outside of nature for the benefit of man through the help of art, and which are therefore thought-provoking, strange, and not things for everyone. For in many things, nature works the opposite of what is beneficial to us, since it always remains in its old course, through which its utility is frequently altered.

Therefore, if we want to bring about something against nature, it must be done and executed through shrewd reflection, art, effort, and special skill.

Hence, those who are practiced and experienced in such and similar arts are called Ingenieurs engineers (a French or foreign term common in Germany) because of their sharp intellect or Ingenium ingenuity/wit, and are thereby distinguished from other ignorant people.

The aforementioned Mechanica is not unreasonably divided into two parts: for it is either Speculativa speculative or Practica practical.

Speculativa, because in this part the mind is exercised solely in thought and intellect, comprises number, weight, and measure, as according to or in which things God, the All-Wise, has orderly disposed and created all creatures. Regarding this first part of Mechanica, many distinguished and famous people have written extensively and in detail for some hundreds of years, as is known to everyone, wherefore there is no need to cite them here, and the favorable reader is referred to them.

Practica, namely the other part of Mechanica, consists of voluntary manual labor, through which one can perform and put into operation an innumerable variety of artistic and useful things. Such as all kinds of tools with which one can push, lead, lift, carry, and move a great load with little effort and few expenses. Item: all kinds of war armaments, throwing machines, ladders, bridges, projectiles, and the like. Pneumatica the art of air/pneumatics, as well as clockwork and gear-works, item: the water-engines and mill-works, of which last two we have undertaken to treat in this treatise.