DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57409#0017
DEDICATION TO COSMO DE’ MEDICI.
[to the edition or 1550].
TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT
SIGNOR COSMO DE’ MEDICI, DUKE OF FLORENCE,
MY MOST REVERED LORD.
Impelled by your own natural magnanimity, and following the
example of your illustrious progenitors, your Excellency has never
ceased to favour and exalt every kind of talent, wheresoever it
may be found, more particularly do you protect the arts of de-
sign ; and since your gracious disposition towards those who exer-
cise these arts, with your knowledge of, and pleasure in, their best
and rarest works, is fully manifest, I have thought that this labour
which I have undertaken—of writing the lives, describing the
works, and setting forth the various relations of those who, when
art had become extinct, first revived, and then gradually conducted
her to that degree of beauty and majesty wherein we now see her,
would not be other than pleasing to your Excellency.
And since almost all these masters were Tuscans, the greater
part of them your own Florentines, many of whom were aided and
encouraged by your illustrious ancestors with every sort of honour
and reward, it may be truly affirmed that the arts were recalled to
life in your own States—nay, in your own most fortunate house.
Thus is the world indebted to your ancestors for the recovery of
these noble arts, by which it is both ennobled and embellished.
Reflecting, therefore, on the gratitude which this age—the arts
and their masters—owe alike to your ancestors, and to yourself, as
the heir of their virtues, and their patronage of these professions,—
reflecting also on what I owe them in my own person, whether as
subject or servant, and for what I have learned from them. Brought
up under the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, and under Alexander,
your predecessor, and deeply honouring the memory of the magna-
nimous Ottaviano de’ Medici, by whom I was supported, befriended,
B
[to the edition or 1550].
TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT
SIGNOR COSMO DE’ MEDICI, DUKE OF FLORENCE,
MY MOST REVERED LORD.
Impelled by your own natural magnanimity, and following the
example of your illustrious progenitors, your Excellency has never
ceased to favour and exalt every kind of talent, wheresoever it
may be found, more particularly do you protect the arts of de-
sign ; and since your gracious disposition towards those who exer-
cise these arts, with your knowledge of, and pleasure in, their best
and rarest works, is fully manifest, I have thought that this labour
which I have undertaken—of writing the lives, describing the
works, and setting forth the various relations of those who, when
art had become extinct, first revived, and then gradually conducted
her to that degree of beauty and majesty wherein we now see her,
would not be other than pleasing to your Excellency.
And since almost all these masters were Tuscans, the greater
part of them your own Florentines, many of whom were aided and
encouraged by your illustrious ancestors with every sort of honour
and reward, it may be truly affirmed that the arts were recalled to
life in your own States—nay, in your own most fortunate house.
Thus is the world indebted to your ancestors for the recovery of
these noble arts, by which it is both ennobled and embellished.
Reflecting, therefore, on the gratitude which this age—the arts
and their masters—owe alike to your ancestors, and to yourself, as
the heir of their virtues, and their patronage of these professions,—
reflecting also on what I owe them in my own person, whether as
subject or servant, and for what I have learned from them. Brought
up under the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, and under Alexander,
your predecessor, and deeply honouring the memory of the magna-
nimous Ottaviano de’ Medici, by whom I was supported, befriended,
B