The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria

foreign languages into the native one. All of these, just as I have always admired them and deemed them worthy of much praise, so conversely I have highly desired to be able to imitate them at least in some part. And since the weakness of my intellect and the care of family matters did not allow me to apply my mind to work of greater moment in this genre, I was induced in years past, at the prayers of some friends, to take up the present translation. From it, I hope to believe that those who delight in similar studies will derive no small comfort; since of the two causes that usually make subjects difficult to be understood—namely, the foreign language and the natural obscurity of the subject—both of which were found in this book, I believe I have entirely removed one and facilitated the other in such a way that it will be henceforth suited to the understanding of many more people than it was before. I have endeavored to translate it into a language not only easy in itself, but further, having illustrated many places that were obscure due to excessive brevity; and others that were excessively incorrect, I have restored to the true reading. This, however, could not be achieved without much fatigue, since the texts, both printed and handwritten, disagreed in many parts, not only in words and concepts but in entire theorems. And what is more, in the very division of the book, because the text of Rome is found to be divided into two. Although this seems done with some reason, having placed in the first all the simpler theorems, which are like elements of the others that then follow in the second, composed of various members, nevertheless? part of the ancient authors, when citing this treatise, show that they hold it to be a single book, and such was the opinion of Commandino Federico Commandino, a renowned 16th-century mathematician and translator of ancient Greek texts, which we have also followed. Francesco Barozzi a Venetian mathematician, among the moderns, was of the opinion that it should be divided into two. Besides this, to facilitate it further, I have made some brief? little annotations where the harshness of the construction? required it, and for words poorly known—either due to their novelty, their antiquity, because they are compound, or because they are proper names of weights, measures, vessels, and instruments—of which rare mention is found in other authors. With all this, I would not want others to give themselves to believe, as many do, that because I have treated these matters in the vernacular language