Simonides Redivivus, or the Art of Memory and Oblivion

like living in the manner of others, nor wishing to awaken the gift that is within us. This age of ours was no less fortunate, and still is, in inventing and correcting, than that former and first age. Although this could be shown by many examples, we shall bring forth a few of them, and those the most recent; since common and less new things are also less accustomed to moving us (which is also a precept of the mnemonic art).

At this time, there are viewing instruments, by whose benefit distant objects, and those removed from us by several miles, are seen quite exactly: which will seem to many to be either not done, or certainly done by the power of enchantment, but falsely. I had such a spyglass not many days ago, and so that I might explore its use, I climbed one of the towers which here is the temple of the Virgin Mary (in which Your Highness was last summer). With its help, therefore, I saw most exactly the buildings and their parts that still remain on Mount Saint Peter, which place is distant from Halle by two miles. I would have wished that I were on the highest tower of the Cretsoensians, or the Argentoratians likely referring to Strasbourg, for a second time, beyond the remarkable height, truly the most artificial and Daedalian; and this for the sake of practicing this mirror better. For from there, I would hope that places distant by even more miles would strike the eyes and appear nearby. There is something even greater underlying this instrument, superior to all faith and admiration among most people, and which many would swear could not be done without the help and industry of demons. For whoever has knowledge of its use, and of the Babylonian tower (commonly called so), he can converse with those absent, and even sometimes quite remote, without the intervention of any letters or messengers.

I also know a way by which one might reveal the thoughts of one's mind to another, over a very great distance of places, and separated by more than a hundred miles, in a point of time, without a courier-