Preface To The Sixth Book - Concerning The Art Of Casting In General And In Particular.

I BELIEVE that my work would surely be host a seed without fit and that I would fail in that cause which disposed me to satisfy your request to write and form this work [75] if while laboring on it I did not tell you of the art of casting, since it is a necessary means to very many ends. I realize even more that I must tell as much as seems necessary since I have already demonstrated the methods of recognizing the natures and locations of the metals, of smelting and reducing them to their ultimate perfection, and finally have taught you to make their associations and alloys. It is especially necessary since this art and work is not well known, so that no one can practice it who is not, so to speak, born to it, or who does not have much talent and good judgment. For this reason and also because it is closely related to sculpture, whose arms are the support of its life, it is very highly esteemed. In order to describe the whole art in every part, I say that the greatest labors of both mind and body are required for its operations in the beginning, middle, and end. It is indeed true that these labors are endured with pleasure because they are associated with a certain expectation of novelty, produced by the greatness of art and awaited with desire, particularly since the artificer sees that it is an art pleasing and delightful even to ignorant men. As a result, as if ensnared, he is often unable to leave the place of work. To conclude: The outcome of this art is dependent upon and subject to many operations which, if they are not all carried out with great care and diligence and well observed throughout, convert the whole into nothing, and the result becomes like its name [cast away]. Therefore, having considered this work many times, with its extraordinary obstacles and the bodily labors heavy as a stevedore's, instead of exalting it with praise, I wish to say that it is such that a man of noble birth, even though he be gifted or be drawn to it by pleasure, should not practice it and could not unless he is accustomed to the sweat and many discomforts which it brings. He must suffer the great natural heats of summer as well as those excessive and continuous ones from the enormous