FRIEDRICH RISNER’S

PREFACE TO THE OPTICS OF ALHAZEN THE ARAB

ADDRESSED TO

Decorative woodcut initial 'P' featuring foliate and floral patterns within a square frame.

More people adore the rising sun, most illustrious Queen, than the setting sun, as the common saying goes. Yet in my judgment, the opposite ought to be the case, since the setting of the sun original: "solis occasus", a reference to the Western Hemisphere encompasses the richest and most wealthy parts of the globe—such as America beneath the equator, and, above all islands, the most fortunate Spice Islands original: "Moluccæ", the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. So too in the life of a human being: if any age is especially worthy of praise, it is old age itself, the governor and teacher of all other ages. Therefore, this plan of honoring your Majesty occurred to me through Pierre de la Ramée original: "P. Ramo", a prominent French humanist scholar and Risner's mentor. Since he has already dedicated the liberal arts to your name in the French language, he has certainly invited many mortals by his example to offer and dedicate the same vows. It is as if he judged you alone in France to be not only a mother most worthy of so great a king, but also the most devoted patroness of all royal virtues and honors.

Therefore, I present and dedicate to you Alhazen as a client, the Arabic writer on optics. As is understood from the Arabic name Alhazen (which in Latin signifies "a good man" original: "bonum uirum"; the name is a Latinization of al-Hasan), and as the inscription of the work indicates, he was born to an Arabic father named Alhayzen. I have learned from men skilled in the Arabic language that there were four philosophers by this name; however, I have not yet been able to determine with certainty, through either reading or inquiry, the exact time when our Alhazen flourished. To be sure, I notice that he is held among the number of the most ancient Arabs by distinguished mathematicians, even though no mention is made of the time in which he lived.

There is a certain conjecture that he lived around the year of Christ 1100, surely in the age of Avicenna Ibn Sina|A Persian polymath and one of the most significant physicians and astronomers of the Islamic Golden Age, Averroes Ibn Rushd|An Andalusian philosopher and jurist known for his influential commentaries on Aristotle, Avenzoar original: "Zoaræ", and other excellent Arabs. It is well established from historical commentaries that in that century, among the Arabs and Saracens, both the study of all noble arts and especially mathematical disciplines flourished. This author, then—whose edition was begun more than thirty years ago by most renowned mathema-