Library of the Imperial Leopoldine-Caroline Academy of Natural Curiosities

it might be permitted to bring to itself, which would be for future benefit. For it does not fall to everyone's lot to have a library of their own, or one sufficiently well-equipped nearby, and a Museum abounding in a store of natural and artificial things. Therefore, so that we might at some time undertake something of this kind, an appropriate place had to be selected before all else. We have already graciously been granted and have occupied such a place in Nuremberg, as if in the heart of Germany, in the buildings once belonging to the monastery of Saint Catherine, so that it might serve as a shelter, not easily disturbed, for our collections, which are indeed still very thin, as is usually the case with the beginnings of new works. But just as we see people daily, even poor ones, provided they are frugal, diligent, and attentive to their affairs, gradually become wealthy and obtain riches hardly hoped for before: so it is not incredible that our small affairs, begun under divine auspices, may grow and be amplified through harmonious study. And would that our venerable predecessors, among such a great number of colleagues who were once favorable and flourishing in authority as much as in resources, had long ago dared to seriously undertake and urge the same work, and had not stopped merely at doubtful prayers. Truly, we would now have an apparatus sufficiently ample and conspicuous, if only each person had contributed their own writings published for the public, or one or another other book, or finally some amount of money. I pass over how many wealthy and liberal men of our order have died since that long time during which our Society has stood and flourished, leaving their goods to unnecessary, sometimes unworthy heirs, into which they would undoubtedly have more willingly placed our Academy if they had known of an appropriate place and a way of spending for public utility. So that we may not lack an institution, as praiseworthy as it is fruitful, any longer in the future, it will certainly be our duty, we who today bear the care of the community, not only to invite, implore, and beseech our benevolent and most loving colleagues, but also all other honest men, liberal supporters of the good arts and sciences, to be willing to benignly assist in enriching the Library and adorning the Museum, by whatever method it has seemed convenient to them themselves to provide this; for we will not spurn even small literary gifts, or curious specimens of natural and artificial things, but we will have equal gratitude for each. As for the apparatus of books separately, the kind reader original: "L. B." for Lector Benevolus, even with us silent, will easily conjecture that authors of natural history are desired in particular, those who clearly explain the phenomena of things, especially Botanists, Zoographers, and Oryctologists experts in plants, animals, and fossils/minerals, also illustrating medical matter at the same time; to which also pertain Pharmacists, Chemists, and Mathematicians, bringing light to physical as well as medical science with curious experiments. Furthermore, we desire Hodoeporica, Chorographies, and Topographies travel narratives, regional descriptions, and local geographies, by which the natural constitution, singular richness, and abundance of things in diverse regions and places are explained. Finally, and before others, authors of observations, cases, and medicinal cures; putting aside, or certainly seeking less, purely dogmatic commentaries and syntheses, and those which rely on the foundation of empty theory rather than experiments.