TO THE GREAT COSIMO DE’

MEDICI, MOST ILLUSTRIOUS

AND EXCELLENT

DUKE OF FLORENCE.

A decorative woodcut printer's ornament consisting of three stylized floral or foliate motifs.

A historiated woodcut initial letter "T" featuring a landscape background and two standing nude figures: a man on the left and a woman on the right.

ALL those who desire to bring their works to light are accustomed to address and consecrate them to some worthy man, so that, aided by his favor and greatness, they may be defended from the envious and read more willingly by the learned. This cannot happen to me in this translation of mine. Because, first of all, the beauty seen in this divine book is not the labor of my own wit The translator uses the word "ingegno" (wit/intellect), a key Renaissance concept referring to the innate creative power of the mind., but that of the greatest man that Florence original: "Fiorenza" has ever had, and perhaps of the most profound Platonist A follower of the philosophy of Plato, focusing on the soul's ascent to the divine. who has emerged from the Academic school The Platonic Academy of Florence, revived in the 15th century by Marsilio Ficino under the patronage of the Medici family. for