A decorative horizontal headpiece features classical motifs, including two circular medallions with figures, flanked by cornucopias, foliage, and grotesque masks.

TO THE MOST AMPLE

AND MOST NOBLE

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS

OF BOLOGNA:

A decorative drop cap 'A' features a landscape scene with a building and trees in the background.

Thirty-three years have passed since I gathered several annotations on the great work of Avicenna and conferred them with Giovanni Paolo Mongio, a truly excellent and most loving physician to me. Since he deemed them not at all useless, and urged me to grant them to the Venetian printer Valgrisi, who was then preparing to edit that book; I took them back into my hands and began to weigh them again with the same Mongio, and with his help, to polish them. Those annotations appeared then under not unfavorable auspices. For those labors of ours were considered worthy of some commendation by very learned men; and from that time, the name of Avicenna seemed to have returned to the favor of learned men. Now, no bookstore holds those observations of ours anymore, and not a few people desire them. When the Giuntas of Venice sensed this, and therefore asked me if I had anything I wished to add to the former, in order to give it to the public good (for they were preparing a new edition of that work), I could not but permit them to take several things that were still in my drafts, written regarding the pathology of that author, even if not yet finalized, along with my copy, purged of the various blemishes that had occurred during the writing and printing. So that now, this book appears somewhat more cultivated than before. It was lacking, for its ornament, that I should say something about the excellence of this writer, and show how undeservedly a previous age neglected him. To do this, while I have varied, true, and solid foundations, I have nevertheless deemed it sufficient to omit the rest and propose this one example to you, most wise men, who illustrate the College of Physicians and Philosophers of Bologna with learning and most noble character. And you, who have always been occupied in the reading of good writers,