To the Honorable and Esteemed Mr. Adrian Freund, prominent citizen in Leipzig, my especially much-favored beloved brother-in-law.

It is, Honorable and Esteemed, friendly beloved brother-in-law, the special grace of dear GOD that in these present, although very difficult and perverted times, not only the Word of GOD is taught and preached purely, clearly, and unadulteratedly in almost all places in Germany, but also that all good arts are, far more gloriously than before, excoliret cultivated/perfected, explained, and brought to light. For to pass over Jurisprudence, Medicine, Eloquence, item all languages, yes, the whole of natural and moral Philosophy, because these hover before everyone’s eyes, the art of many kinds of Machinis machines, belonging to architecture both on land and in the water, was previously to be found in barely one or two languages, hardly by one or the other author, and yet very briefly, sparingly, and mostly very obscurely; but now it has been far more gloriously explained, increased, and improved by many excellent Ingeniis minds/talents instructed by experience itself, so that nowadays such artists are undoubtedly called Ingenieurs engineers due to the peculiar depth of thought that is required herein. Although I have only a meager understanding of these things, I nevertheless carry, among other things, a special desire for them. Therefore, I first edited the first part of the Theatri Machinarum by the late Mr. Heinrich Zeising, subsequently brought another part to it, and published it at my own expense through the press. And because milling, due to its necessity, is not the least, but perhaps the most important [art] herein, I have also treated the same in this third part.