Dedicatory Letter

...that even if the shocks were a hundred times greater, they would not value them at all, or feel them any more than if they were touched by a young girl. Nor would I wish for you to deem me worthy of blame: because regarding such stupidities and so unworthy a field Bruno refers to the poor intellectual quality of his opponents at Oxford as the "field" or starting point of his work. as these doctors have provided us, we have wished to amplify original: exaggerar; here meaning to treat at length or elevate in importance. such grave and worthy propositions. For I am certain you know there is a difference between taking something as a foundation and taking it as an occasion. Foundations, in truth, must be proportioned to the size, condition, and nobility of the building. But occasions original: occaſioni; a rhetorical term meaning the specific circumstances or pretexts that trigger a discussion. can be of all sorts, for all effects: because the smallest and most sordid things are the seeds of great and excellent things. Foolishness and madness usually provoke great counsel, judgments, and inventions; not to mention that it is manifest that errors and crimes have many times provided the occasion for the greatest rules of justice and goodness.

If, in this portrait, it seems to you that the colors do not perfectly match the life, and the outlines do not seem entirely proper to you, know that the defect arises from this: that the painter could not examine the portrait with those spaces and distances that masters of the art usually take. For besides the fact that the panel original: tauola; the wooden support used for painting in the Renaissance. or the background was too close to the face and the eyes, he could not pull back even a single step or move away from one side or the other without fear of taking that leap which the son of the famous defender of Troy Probably a reference to Astyanax, son of Hector, who was thrown from the walls of Troy. took. Yet, take this portrait as it is—where those two, those hundred, those thousand, and all of them are present. For it is not sent to you to inform you of what you already know, nor to "add water to the rapid river" A common idiom meaning to perform a redundant action, similar to "carrying coals to Newcastle." of your judgment and wit, but because I know that, as is usual, although you know...