On the Movement of Animals, Part One

CARLO JO. A JESU, OF THE CLERICAL REGULARS OF THE POOR MOTHER OF GOD OF THE PIOUS SCHOOLS, PREPOSITUS GENERALIS.

At last, there comes into the public light of the Republic of Letters the book of GIOVANNI ALFONSO BORELLI ON THE MOVEMENT OF ANIMALS, awaited for so many years; this alone is unfortunate, that it could neither gladden the eyes of its Begetter, nor receive from his own hands the final polish, which, as I believe no one is unaware, contributes so much of perfection and refinement to a work. Yet it does have that for which it may rejoice, and that which it owes to the Virtue that has been complemented to the point of envy; for this posthumous fetus has met with the most auspicious patronage of QUEEN CHRISTINA, the guardian deity of men of letters, who has embraced the author with such kindness—that she saw fit to relieve his needy fortune with generous stipends and income—that she has similarly bestowed her Royal Munificence upon his work, as if it were the heir to his genius. Since, however, our students of mathematics, whom the Author spent two years educating, have fully grasped the mind of their Teacher—partly by transcribing, partly by deferring, and partly by bringing "bricks and sand," as they say, to the work—[the Author] did not disdain to entrust to our fidelity (which he had also bound by hereditary right) those things which were not yet polished, or not expressed in the tables of Figures, or added or changed in schedules scattered here and there, lest they might deceive the eyes of others.