EPISTLE TO THE SENATE OF NUREMBERG

The second journey undertaken to Italy, as it was not happy, so it could not bring back any good authors to us. For, casting off his humanity (not without suspicion of given poison), what could he bring back to us, his fellow citizens, being lifeless? But these things are to be passed over. As for the things of which we have spoken, all will not unwillingly concede them to our Archimedes. For the things he wrote are placed in such a position of eminence that you would easily find no one who dares to contend to snatch the palm of the art from him. Archimedes flourished in the city of Syracuse in Sicily, a mathematician and geometer noble among the first: from whom both an easy and expeditious method of measuring any masses was invented. Moreover, it has been handed down to memory that he found such a way to move the globe of the earth that he did not hesitate to say: "If there were another globe of the earth, he would draw it toward this one of his, or he would push this one of his toward that other." And truly indeed. For, by the confidence of his art, he delayed the siege of M. Marcellus for no small time, and at the same time protected the walls of his fatherland. It also pleases, for the favor of students, to insert the assessment of C. Plinius here, writing thus: Book 7, ch. 37. "A great testimony to the geometric and mechanical science of Archimedes occurred during the siege of M. Marcellus, when Syracuse was captured, in that he was ordered not to be violated, unless the military imprudence of an officer had misled the command." And let these things be said in this manner, while I add this also in place of an appendix: the cause and power of liberal studies are more secret than can be perceived by profane minds. For both the praise and the fruit and glory resulting from our studies must be directed toward that one supreme cause of all things, by whose preceding goodness it happens that meanwhile all those cares, labors, and vigils placed in proper studies are sweet, while our mind can and is able to penetrate as perfectly as possible to the knowledge of honorable arts. But we have already said before that those who despise those honorable studies of ours deserve to have neither the care of the Divinity nor a reckoning of their own happiness. We, however, who weigh everything with a more equitable judgment than the dull mob, say the end of our studies is: first, that we may know the Creator of things as fully as possible; second, that being learned by his gifts, through this knowledge of natural things, we may also become better and purer in our souls, until at last we are rendered as similar as possible to the highest spirits, by the grace and mercy of God and our Savior, who may protect both you and, together with you, your Republic