Various Questions and Inventions

one wants to be the possessor, because if all our ancestors had observed the same, we would at present differ little from irrational animals. Therefore, not to incur this blame, I have deliberated to send these questions or inventions of mine entirely into the light, and to give a beginning to execute such good will of mine, I have for the present collected a part from a memorial of mine in which I always noted down for good memory all the notables that were made to me by my own hand, and this part I have distributed into nine books, distinguished according to the quality of the matters in accordance with such questions. Then, coming to remember that by reasoning one day with our honorable companion, Messer Richard Wentworth, a gentleman of your Sacred Majesty, who, preaching to me of the Magnificence, Magnanimity, Liberality, Generosity, Humanity, and Clemency of your Highness, also told me how your Celsitude delighted greatly in all things pertaining to war, thinking on this has given me boldness (although in me there is not that eloquence and ornate speech that would be required for the hearing of your Serenity) to offer and dedicate to you such questions or interrogations of mine, with their resolute answers, not as something convenient for your Sublimity (because in truth the things of the most profound doctrine, narrated and explained with elegant and terse style, could not reach the first degree of your Highness, let alone these of ours, which are Mechanical and plebeian things, and similarly said and pronounced with a rough and low style.) But I offer and dedicate them to you only as things new, as is customary to do with the first fruits that are found at the beginning of their season, which (even though they are somewhat immature, and of little substance, and less flavor) are always accustomed to be presented to Magnificent and lordly persons, not for the quality of the matter, but for the novelty of it, because new things are naturally accustomed to please the human intellect, and this has given me to believe that our inventions should not altogether displease your Clemency, but rather please you somewhat. If this is so (as I desire), it will give me courage to attempt more in the future. At the feet of which, prostrated on the ground with hands joined and head bowed, I humbly commend myself.