M. Vitruvius per Iocundum solito castigatior factus cum figuris et tabula ut iam legi et intelligi possit

TO THE MOST BLESSED POPE JULIUS II: BROTHER JO. IOCUNDUS Giovanni Giocondo SENDS GREETINGS.

I have decided, Most Holy Pontiff, to dedicate to your name these studies and labors which I exhausted in restoring Vitruvius to the norm of his original reading, and which I judged would be pleasing to you. This is fitting, as you are the monarch of the entire human race, and the only one who acts as the vicar of the Best and Greatest God on earth. Through your deeds, and through every stage of your life, you have shown with greatness of soul how many and how numerous are the virtues in which you excel. The most happy results of your actions, not only since you attained the height of the supreme pontificate, but even from the very beginnings of your life, prove your talent and skill. It seemed right to me, therefore, to dedicate this judgment of my mind and love to your architecture studies, in which you take great pleasure, as evidenced by the monuments of your vast and magnificent expenditures in the completion of buildings, which rank among your other greatest virtues. In these, as in many other things, you have surpassed the princes of our age, and even those of the past, in both number and magnificence. I do not offer this as a flattering commentary on your praise, but rather, let the works themselves be the witnesses of truth. The works are constant. Let one look for someone who equals the number, or who is second, or who has done greater or more magnificent things, whose fame (like yours) could extend to the ends of the ages. Receive, therefore, with a placid countenance, Most Blessed Father, the labors I dedicate to you in the restoration of this author. Do not consider them meager, for it is known that (so that I might understand) I compared his words and meaning with the remnants of ruins and ancient buildings not once, but often and many times, and not without much sweat and fatigue. And even this—such was my care for this matter—would have seemed little if we had possessed the entire reading of the author himself. Because I found it almost entirely corrupted, and I did not find any scholar who had taken on the burden of correcting it or had penetrated to its perfect understanding, I turned my attention more diligently as I began to examine each part, turning to ancient examples as if they were a handle for discerning the truth. I found them not in a few places, nor in only one region or city, but in many. And thus, intent on this double study, namely the monuments of ancient ruins and books redolent of the antiquity of their site, I made a path of understanding quite clear to myself. From the diverse readings, it came about that from one codex or another, I found many corrected places, or they showed the way to correction. Where these did not help, I left them as they were. I wanted this to be known, lest I be criticized by those who look for a knot in a rush a common Latin proverb meaning to find faults where none exist, as if I were one who boasts of having restored the pristine, integral reading of the author to perfection. For I neither promised this, nor do I know myself to be capable of it, since there are some things in it that...