la of Rumo, similarly from
Anauni * who skillfully produced this work * in this same current year
of Our Lord * which is the year 5713 [sic] since God created this earth.
(Trent: From the Printshop of Giovanni Battista Monauni, With Permission
of the Superiors.)" (_Title page reproduced by courtesy of the
Biblioteca della Citta di Trento._)]

You ought to know, therefore, that as a result of my nightly
meditations, I have rejected, after much consideration, all the
explanations of the universe thus far published. All other
theories of the make-up of the universe, however admirable, and
however many there are, turn the sun and earth around in an
ecliptic in an annual movement. Thus, Philolaus was the first
to move the earth from the center of the universe and move it
through the void; afterwards, Aristarchus of Samos and then
Copernicus moved the earth with the moon. The Egyptians, as
well as Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Tycho, Riciolus, Longomontanus,
etc., thought that the sun moved through the degrees of the
ecliptic each year. But I attributed this movement to neither
earth nor sun for the movement of both is only apparent. I did
not vainly surmise the annual equilibrium in all astronomical
observations to be from the daily movement of the same axis
moved at the poles of the heavens. Nor, in like manner, is
there a better way to satisfy physical experiments. To you,
then, most cultured reader: If you, perhaps, can make any use
or draw pleasure from this most faithful description of my new
theory and the mechanical instrument, refer it first to God on
High from whom is everything that is best, and then to those
avidly awaiting this little work. Lastly, if you find any
statement less fitting; in your humanity, do not disdain to
excuse it.

Borghesian Theory of the Universe

In Father Borghesi's second volume, there is a separate chapter entitled
"An Exposition of the Latest Theory of the Universe." This follows the
introduction to the reader, and in it Father Borghesi proposed:

That you might rightly conceive my new system of the world and
mechanically, as it were, construct it, imagine for yourself,
beneath that most happy seat of the Blessed and above all other
heavens, a kind of spherical convexity, everywhere equidistant
from the center of the earth, and endowed with