History of the Fungi of the Kingdom of Naples

...much consideration to pay to those who study this science. It will always be enough for me to have shown the path, previously untried by our countrymen, and to have made a beginning with the more beautiful and rarer specimens. Others, surely led by the pleasure and example of examining such objects of Nature, will be excited to attempt greater things, by which method the knowledge of this herbal study of our fatherland will undoubtedly reach the highest peak of perfection.

Therefore, most excellent Men, I humbly submit these three specimens—and others, if life and leisure allow—as a token of my respect, confident that I am not, if I am not mistaken, acting on a vain hope that You will not disdain them, for there is no one who does not know that your kindness is equal to your wisdom. It is also pleasing to finish what I have prefaced with these words of Malpighi, as he presented his dissertation on the formation of the chick in the egg to the Great English Society: "having discussed the established rules of individuals, either indicate new labors or order a perpetual holiday."

Naples, on the day before the Ides of August,

M. DCCC. XXV.