To the Most Eminent and Most Reverend

CARDINAL

NITHARD,

JOANNES STEPHANUS KESTLERUS

Large ornamental woodcut initial 'S' featuring floral and foliate patterns within a square frame.

At last, the Physiological Work, promised and expected for so long, but hindered in various ways by intervening business, presents itself to your August Eminence’s view. It is a work truly most worthy of every consideration, compiled from the vast works of the immortal man, Father Athanasius Kircher, and contracted into this volume by me in response to the wishes and prayers of many. Just as the majesty of universal nature, as a bridesmaid of empirical science, shines forth through the marriage of art and nature in this work—by an incredible multitude and variety of experiments digested into seven classes—so too was it owed by the best of rights to no one more than to you, most wise Cardinal, who by the varied knowledge of divine and human affairs in which you excel, have already filled the world with your fame. Therefore, I do not deliberately venture further into the prerogatives of your great mind, lest I appear to augment the redness of your purple with the redness of your modesty, which you bear with difficulty. This one thing I entreat of you, Most Eminent Cardinal, with the most humble submission of mind: that you deign to accept this work with that same feeling of kindness with which you do not cease to favor the Author, who is joined to you by an almost domestic intimacy, and that you might not be reluctant to admit me, his companion in Kircherian studies and the compiler of this work, under the shadow of your protection. Farewell, glory of ecclesiastical dignity and ornament and grace of the Christian commonwealth. Given at Rome, 15 October, 1675.