De Motu Animalium

a shining treasure of doctrine, in which the mechanical craft of Nature in forming and maintaining animal bodies is discovered to have been hidden until now, by offering it, so that a very wide field is opened for either learning or speculating upon other new things. Therefore, take this in good part, good reader, and congratulate us that a glory, which many Academies from the more remote parts of the globe have eagerly desired, has been granted to us. I say many, for the Universities of Holland, France, and Italy have most vehemently demanded the work from the Author, promising that they would publish it at their own expense; yet Borelli, in his wisdom, placed all of them after the most august Name of CHRISTINA, and from whose most humane Majesty he felt so much honor was being conferred upon him; as a Monument of his mind grateful to her, he ordered that this Work should stand, indeed more lasting than bronze.

Perhaps some things should have been prefixed here concerning the Author and his mind in this work; but since he himself sufficiently expressed his mind and intent in the Preface, I think it should be passed over. But what shall I say of the Author, when his most illustrious Virtue has made him famous throughout the whole world? Neapolis, the most flourishing City of Italy, and the most fruitful Parent of heroes who are always resplendent in the arms, literature, and every kind of virtue of recent times, is proud to have added Jo: Alfonso to their roll on the 28th of January, 1608, born to his parents Michaele Alonso and Laura, in the protection of the most fortified fortress, which they call Castel Nuovo, for the most invincible King of Spain, PHILIP III. He spent his life in the studies of Philosophy and Mathematics, having been called to the primary professorships everywhere, especially in Florence and Pisa, where he was always treated most humanely by those most Serene Princes, and he published various things on these subjects, such as: on the causes of malignant fevers in the Tuscan language in the year 1649; the restored Euclid in the year 1658, which has seen the light of day three times up to this point, and always more polished, especially the most recent one, which Alexander Falconerius, a youth of most elegant disposition—and who, together with his whole noble family, was inclined toward Borelli, the teacher, with singular benevolence—purchased at his own expense last year. The 5th, 6th, and 7th books of the Conics of Apollonius of Perga in the year 1661. The Theory of the Medicean planets in 1666. On the force of percussion in 1667. The History and Meteorology of the eruption of Mount Etna of the year 1669, in the following year 1670. When also the Treatise on natural motions depending on gravity. In each, showing himself to be equal to himself in both wisdom and clarity. Then in his final years