ULYSSES ALDROVANDI

PATRICIAN OF BOLOGNA

THE HISTORIES

OF SERPENTS AND DRAGONS.

Book One.

THE ORDER OF THE METHOD.

Since Aristotle, the prince of philosophers and the common teacher of all, has not unworthily written in his History of Animals that serpents are to be classified among blooded living creatures, we have judged it not inconsistent with reason, after having exhausted the history of all quadrupeds, to commit to record with all possible skill the nature and habits of serpents and dragons. We do this not only so that we may adorn our work on irrational animals with this crowning achievement of such an immense labor, but also because, if the nature of certain quadrupeds is so wicked and destructive to man that armed men are forced to approach their hunting (as was recently published in the final volume on digitated quadrupeds), the habits of serpents are likewise so harmful and so contrary to human nature (for they do injury with teeth and venom) that to overcome and destroy them, one must enter into not just a hunt, but sometimes a formidable battle. For we read in the histories of the Indians that hunters, setting out to overcome snakes of immense size, first appoint a leader whose nods the others may obey; they station scouts in watchtowers, provoke the enemy, lay traps, send foot soldiers ahead through the woods, fortify open fields and level ground with wings of cavalry, and finally signal their prey and victory with the sounding of trumpets and the clamor of horns. Therefore, we have determined to divide this History of Dragons and Serpents into two classes. In the first, we shall discuss first those commonly called serpents, which lack feet, as they are more familiar; in the second, we shall speak of those great, and sometimes even footed, serpents known as dragons. Although writers of no mean standing often appear to confuse these names of dragons and serpents, as will become manifest in the progress of this work.