TO THE DISCREET READERS.

Ornate woodcut initial 'L' decorated with scrolled leaf designs and floral motifs.

The opportunity to interact with so many great gentlemen in this most noble Studio of Padua University of Padua to instruct them in the Mathematical Sciences has, through long experience, made me realize that the request of that great disciple Reference to Dionysius of Syracuse who asked Archimedes, his master in Geometry, for a road more easy and open to lead him to the acquisition of that knowledge, was not entirely indecent. For even in this age, there are very few to whom the steep and thorny paths, through which one must pass before one can reach the acquisition of the precious fruits of these sciences, are not displeasing, or who, frightened by the long harshness and even more by not seeing or being able to imagine how these obscure and unknown roads can lead them to the desired goal, do not stop and abandon the enterprise before they are halfway through the journey. And I have seen this happen all the more frequently the more important the personages with whom I have met, as those who are occupied and distracted by so many other dealings cannot exercise the assiduous patience that would be necessary here. I, therefore, excusing them together with the young King of Syracuse Hiero II of Syracuse and desiring that they not remain deprived, because of the difficulty and length of the common roads, of knowledge so necessary to noble gentlemen, set myself to attempt to open this truly Royal Way, which, with the help of this my Compass, teaches in very few days all that which from Geometry and Arithmetic for Civil and Military use...