Practical Manual of Artillery

language, more than immediately, for as soon as this first Italian edition is out, it will immediately be translated into the Spanish language. The second is that in discussing artillery, where one deals mostly with coarse vocabulary & uneducated men, one should not seek the elegance of Demosthenes or of Cicero, but only those bare & naked terms which are commonly practiced among Artillerists. And if I had sought some talented Italian man to take on the task of correcting & polishing this Work of mine, perhaps in trying to amend my lack of elegance, he would have ruined the work & the subject. The third reason why I should not be blamed, or if not praised, at least not censured by the Readers, is that not being Italian, & having to write in this language, I have had much greater trouble of mind, & a thousand times more, than if I had written it in the Spanish language; both because this is not my maternal & native tongue; as for being forced to go about investigating the vocabulary of the Italian language, belonging & appropriate to the subject; therefore, most affectionate Reader, I pray & exhort you not to pay attention to the naked phrasing & the rough & poorly polished style of this my Practical Manual of Artillery, which I offer & present to you, even though it may be a small gift & meager for your merit, but rather to the immense affection & kind spirit of the one by whom it is lovingly presented to you.

A decorative woodcut tailpiece consists of a symmetrical arrangement of scrollwork, acanthus leaves, and floral blossoms.

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