Archimedes Texts

To the Most
Reverend Father
SEBASTIANO FANTONI,
General of the Order of
CARMELITES.

In obedience to the command of the No
ble Signore Vincenzo Carraffa, a Neapo
litan, and Knight of S. John of Jeru
salem, (a person, to speak the truth, of
so great Merit, that in him Nobility of
Birth, Affability of Manners, Universal
knowledge of Arts and things, Piety
and Vertue do all contend for prehemi
nence) I resolved with my self to un
dertake the Defence of the Writings of the New, or rather Re
newed, and from the Dust of Oblivion (in which it hath long
lain hid) lately Revived Opinion, Of the Mobility of the Earth,
and Stability of the Sun, in times past found out first by Pytha
goras, and at last reduced into Practice by Copernicus; who like
wise hath deduced the Position of the Systeme and Constitution
of the World and its parts from that Hypothesis: on which
Subject I have formerly writ to You, Most Reverend Sir: But
in regard I am bound for Rome to preach there by your Com
mand; and since this Speculation may seem more proper for a
nother Treatise, to wit, a Volume of Cosmography, which I am
in hand with, and which I am daily busie about, that it may
come forth in company with my Compendium of the Liberal Arts,
which I have already finished, rather than now to discuss it by it
self, I thought to forbear, imparting what I have done for the
present; Yet I was desirous to give, in the mean time, a brief ac
count of this my Determination, and to shew You, Most Reve
rend Father, (to whom I owe all my indeavours, and my very
self) the Foundations on which this Opinion may be grounded,
least, whilst otherwise it is favoured with much probability, it be
found in reality to be extreamly repugnant (as at first sight it