JOHANNES BROEN,

DOCTOR OF MEDICINE OF LEIDEN

TO THE LEARNED READER, GREETINGS.

A large, ornate initial letter 'S' is depicted, decorated with intricate floral and vine motifs.

Here, Benevolent and Learned Reader, is presented to YOU the Physico-Mathematical Atrium of JOHANNES ALPHONSUS BORELLI of Naples, opened to HIS MAGNIFICENT BUILDING OF THE MOTIONS OF ANIMALS, finally adorned with neater and more accurate Belgian type. At first glance, you may perhaps wonder where this new title for this book came from, a title of which not even a trace can be found in any of the Author's writings; but I will tell you briefly how the matter stands. Before our Distinguished Author communicated his final system regarding the Motion of Animals (a Work, indeed, gleaming most broadly with the brilliance of the rarest Erudition) to the Literary world, he had preceded it with two others, the first of which was ON THE FORCE OF PERCUSSION, the second ON NATURAL MOTIONS DEPENDENT ON GRAVITY; both were written by him in Italy with such intention of mind that, as he himself openly confesses in many places, they might first lay firm and immovable foundations for the aforementioned system; thus:

But since the copies of those books had been so snatched up by the Curious everywhere that they could scarcely be acquired at an immense and hardly credible price, behold, the Leiden bookseller considers a new edition of them. Since he sought my Help so that it might be neater and more accurate, I did not wish to fail him in this matter in any way. First, because he desired them to be joined together (as was fitting) and adorned with a general title, I easily provided him with a new one, as you see, not considering it to be so very foreign to the subject itself—as can become quite clear to one attending carefully to the Dedication offered to the Most Celebrated JOH. NIC. PECHLIN. Second, it occurs to me that I must mention that, for the sake of those to whom the Italian language might perhaps be obscure or entirely unknown, I have translated the Author's Responses, appended to the book on the Force of Percussion, into Latin with the utmost fidelity. Third, it remains to be pointed out to you, Benevolent Reader, that copperplate engravings replace those wooden figures with which the Italian Edition of the book on Natural Motions, etc., was adorned, not to mention that triple Index with which that same book has now been augmented, nor the great care expended in revising and correcting the type itself. I have done this all the more willingly as the nearly inimitable Virtue of the Distinguished Author infinitely deserved it—a virtue for which my inarticulate and meager tongue is by no means sufficient to recount and extend as is due. Many other men, conspicuous for their profound Erudition, have certainly done this more vividly and elegantly. The Most Illustrious CARLO GIUSEPPE A GESU proclaims in his Preface that BORELLI’S MOST DISTINGUISHED VIRTUE HAS MADE HIM FAMOUS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, and calls him an EXAMPLE OF MODESTY, SOBRIETY, AND EQUANIMITY, etc. The most subtle DONATO ROSETTI...