The Ursine Rose, or the Sun

Observations with the perpendicular take their origin from Apelles.

For I made P. Cysatus a participant in this secret from the beginning, and P. Georgius Schoënberger long afterwards. Therefore, if any streams of ours concerning this solar phenomenon should come into your hands and eyes, you will judge not at all obscurely from which springs they flowed. For this matter remained within the domestic walls of our Society for many years, and I know well that from the first year of discovery, which was 1611, to the year 1618, no observations marked by a perpendicular—and thus most suitable for concluding something certain—can be produced other than those made or taught by the Ingolstadt Mathematicians. What has been achieved in later years, and by whom, the coming day will show. Furthermore, the excessive silence of Apelles seems to have made his rivals talkative, if not also biting, for they accused the man himself in later years of being a plunderer of others' inventions. From the infamous suspicion of this crime, I clear Apelles in Book One, I bring the errors of the Censor of Apelles into the open, and I dedicate and declare the laurel of the invention to the ROSA URSINA Bear Rose. And thus, according to the symbol of Cardinal Ursini, I PROVIDE NOURISHMENT FOR MYSELF original: "IPSE ALIMENTA MIHI", I do not beg it from others.
See book 1.

Book 1. material.

Book 2. summary.

But because, along with ROSES, the thorns of prickles are also thrust forth in abundance, so that the other URSINE symbol may announce itself no less concerning this URSINA than the natural ROSE: PLEASANT TO THE SIGHT, HARSH TO THE TOUCH original: "VISV BLANDA ASPERA TACTV"; therefore, in Book Two, I point out, remove, and render light the difficulties that occur regarding the solar phenomenon from the instruments, from the method of observing and ordering the spots, from the heavens, and from the Sun and the Observer himself. On that occasion, I argue much about the organ of sight, much about the Optical Tube the telescope not touched upon by others, and much about optical lenses and their refraction. I teach the nature, manufacture, composition, and use of the Optical Tube, and I bring forth a succinct demonstration of it. I faithfully hand down the practice of observing, of introducing a perpendicular, of inscribing the Ecliptic, of ordering the courses of the observed spots and faculae bright patches on the Sun, and of avoiding errors. Thus, I procure undoubted faith for Book Three, in WHICH I place before your eyes the courses of spots and faculae described on the Sun in a continuous series of many years, months, and days, like elegant garlands of roses in mutual connections. For just as THE DAY ITSELF OPENS the ROSES, so too it opens this solar appearance, not all at once but successively, through the lapse of much time, long patience, and indefatigable study. For you will see course joined to course, spot to spot, facula to facula. You will experience a spot succeeding a facula, or the latter succeeding the former, in a pleasing alternation of change. You will behold the light from the faculae being administered now before, now behind, and soon beside them. You will view whole clusters of faculae mixed with spots, like bouquets of roses distinguished by the radiance of carbuncles; nor will the whitening patches of faculae be lacking to the spots themselves. Indeed, Nature, the most faithful administrator of truth, dispenses even laurel berries as a sign of victory while she distributes BLACKISH NUCLEI in the very navels of the spots. Moreover, the umbrae shadows and secondary spots provide a not unpleasant appearance of leaves, which, while they wander as if randomly dispersed throughout the entire complex of the solar circle, provide an odoriferous path and a soft bed for the laureate bears, who carry the solar pomp and the ROSA URSINA around the celestial circus.
The optical tube is demonstrated in book 2.

With the exterior habit and gait of the ROSA URSINA seen, Book Four proceeds to the interior, and discovers its birthplace and cradle in the very palace of the Sun. Indeed, it manifests the offspring of the Sun itself with unmistakable signs; for it competes with the Sun both in the excellence of its light and in the same swiftness of motion. It performs the same annual circuits and the same monthly dances around the proper center of the solar sphere together with the Sun, and it reveals itself joyfully now in the upper parts of the heavens, now in the lower. By what reason this is done, THE THEORETICAL REASON ITSELF original: "RATIO IPSA THEORICA", taken from the phenomenon, demonstrates more clearly than light.

There is a saying that bears form their shapeless offspring by licking them: hence that URSINE Emblem; INDUSTRY FORMS IT original: "INDUSTRIA FORMAT".