DEDICATORY EPISTLE

So sacrilegious yet so religious; so cheerful yet so wrathful;
so harsh yet so joyful; so thin as a Florentine, so fat as a
Bolognese Bruno plays on cultural stereotypes: the Florentines were often viewed as lean, sharp-witted intellectuals, while the Bolognese were stereotyped as opulent and hearty eaters.: So Cynic yet so decadent; so
frivolous yet so serious; so grave yet so buffoonish;
so tragic yet so comic: that I surely believe there will
not be a little occasion for you to become Heroic, yet humble;
Master, yet disciple; Believer, yet misbeliever; Joyful,
yet sad; Saturnine Melancholy or gloomy, influenced by the planet Saturn., yet Jovial; Light, yet ponderous;
Dog-like A reference to the "Cynic" philosophers (from the Greek 'kynikos' or dog-like), known for their biting criticism of social norms., yet generous; Ape-like, yet consular; a Sophist with
Aristotle, a Philosopher with Pythagoras; laughing with
Democritus, and weeping with Heraclitus. Democritus and Heraclitus were the classical archetypes of the "laughing" and "weeping" philosophers, representing two opposite ways of viewing the folly of the world. I mean to say,
after you have smelled with the Peripatetics Followers of Aristotle, known for their focus on the physical world.; eaten
with the Pythagoreans, and drunk with the Stoics, you
may yet have something to suck on with that one who,
showing his teeth, had so kind a laugh: that with
his mouth he touched one ear and the other. Because
in breaking the bones and extracting the marrow: you
will find something to make the dissolute Saint Colombini,
patriarch of the Jesuates Giovanni Colombini (1304–1367) founded the Jesuates, a lay order known for extreme humility and joyful apostolic poverty. Bruno suggests his text is so potent it would unsettle even the most ascetic saint., attain whatever
bargain he sought, make apes dislocate their jaws with laughter,
and break the silence of any cemetery. You will ask me what
symposium, what banquet is this? It is a supper. What supper? Of
the ashes. What does "The Ash Wednesday Supper" mean? Was
this meal perhaps placed before you in the past? Could it perhaps be said
here: I ATE ASHES AS IF THEY WERE BREAD? original: "CINEREM TAMQUAM PANEM MANDVCABAM." A quotation from Psalm 102:9.
No. But it is a banquet held after the setting of the sun,
on the first day of Lent, called by our priests ASH WEDNESDAY; original: "DIES CINERVM."
and sometimes the Day of REMEMBER. original: "MEMENTO." Referring to the phrase "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es" (Remember, man, that thou art dust). In what does this banquet,
this supper, consist? Certainly not in considering the soul and
character of the very noble and well-bred Sir Fulke
Greville original: "Folco Grivello." Fulke Greville (1554–1628) was a prominent Elizabethan poet and courtier at whose house the dialogue is set., at whose honored residence we gathered. Nor concerning
the honored customs of those most civil gentlemen who,
as spectators and listeners, were present there. But
concerning a desire to see how much nature is capable of, in