Opera omnia medico-chymica

Ornate headpiece featuring floral and foliate scrollwork.

Large ornamental drop cap "V".

When I, fixed upon antiquity, behold the ancient borders of the Dulgibini a Germanic tribe mentioned by Tacitus and the field in your domains, Most Illustrious Lord, noble for the Varian disaster the defeat of the Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest, it immediately comes to mind that this nation was once indomitable in war and never sufficiently subdued by the victorious eagles of the Romans. Yet those ancestors of ours in the age of Arminius placed all their glory solely in the strength of their limbs and in the skillful handling of arms, being far too indifferent to other arts. Thus it happened that the Greeks, and the Italians following in their footsteps, who ambitiously claimed to be the champions of literature, exposed them to contempt on account of their unrefined and rustic way of life, handing them down by scarcely any other name than the reproachful one of Barbarians. But truly, by the favorable kindness of fate, the inhabitants of later centuries have struggled out of that former squalor and have won for themselves the glory of genius and erudition once occupied by insolent Rome. Nor, while they polished their minds, undaunted in battle, with the elegance of the fine arts, did their sword-points meanwhile gather rust, as their trophies testify; rather, the lords of the Teutoburg Forest, ruling not far from the Aliso a Roman fort near the Lippe river mentioned in the annals of Tacitus, have shown the world that the arms of Mars join with Pallas the goddess of wisdom and war in mutual benefit. It would require little effort of diligence here to weave together panegyrics for these heroes, and especially to admire in you, Most Illustrious Lord, not only the honor of military fortitude but also your august favor toward letters and their cultivators, did I not recognize myself as inferior to the task of recounting the ancestral virtues of your most illustrious House. Therefore, I did not hesitate long before humbly placing this literary monument at your feet, most merciful Lord, consecrated to your patronage, since I know that the approach to your favor lies open to those who profess Pallas no less than Mars. Since, therefore, it has pleased your Most Illustrious Highness to most graciously call me from my Academic Professorship to the duty of Councilor and Chief Physician, I feel all the more bound to prove my services to your Most Illustrious Highness and to attest my veneration by this public inscription. May you, the best father of the fatherland, reject neither these papers nor the mind of your client, which is devoted to your service as long as life shall remain. Detmold, the Kalends of March, 1684.