FEDERICUS RISNERUS'

PREFACE TO THE OPTICS

OF ALHAZEN THE ARAB

An ornamental woodcut initial 'P' featuring foliage and scrollwork.

Many people worship the rising sun, most illustrious Queen, rather than the setting, as is commonly said; but in my judgment, it should be the contrary, since the setting of the sun encompasses the richest and most opulent parts of the world, just as America is under the equator, and the Moluccas are the most fortunate of all islands. And in the life of a man, if any age is especially praiseworthy, it is old age itself, the governess and teacher of the other ages. And so, this advice occurred to me from P. Ramus Petrus Ramus regarding the honoring of your Majesty: for he, having consecrated the liberal arts to your name in the French language, surely invited many mortals by his example to conceive and dedicate the same vows, as if he judged you alone in France not only the most worthy mother of such a great king, but the most loving patroness of all royal virtues and praises. Therefore, I dedicate and offer to you Alhazen as a client, the Arab writer of optics, as is understood from the Arabic name Alhazen (which sounds like "good man" in Latin); and the inscription of the work indicates that he was born of the Arab father Alhayzen. I have learned from those skilled in the Arabic language that there were four Arab philosophers by this name; yet, neither by reading nor by inquiring have I been able to know for certain at what time our Alhazen flourished. Indeed, I observe that he is held by distinguished mathematicians to be among the number of the most ancient Arabs, although there is no mention of the time in which he lived. There is a certain conjecture that he lived in the year of Christ about eleven hundred, clearly in the age of Avicenna, Averroes, Zoara, and other excellent Arabs; in which century it is sufficiently clear from historical commentaries that both the studies of all liberal arts and especially mathematical disciplines flourished among the Arabs and Saracens. This author, therefore (whose edition we have expected for more than thirty years from the most famous mathematicians)...