Ioannis Boccatii de Certaldo insigne opus De claris mulieribus

TO THE EXCELLENT AND NOBLE MAN, LORD ADRIAN VON BUBENBERG, of the Roman Monastery, most illustrious governor of the new province of Bern among the Allobroges historical term for inhabitants of this region, Ioannes Telorus Abufiacus, moderator of the school at the magnificent Bern of the Swiss, prays for grace and peace.

I HAPPENED upon that noble little work of Boccaccio, On Famous Women, by chance, and almost just as it had begun to be pressed under the print, most humane and illustrious man. Because I saw it was worthy of the effort, as much as in me lay, applying study and labor, I began to diligently rescue it from all the neglect, errors, and filth by which it had been pressed until now, and which had not been printed for many years, and to collect it into order. Furthermore, I added an αὐτοσχεδιασικὸν impromptu/extemporaneous poem, by which I indicate the heads of the matters, as if through a lattice, and the deeds of the heroines, in both directions, most famous. And this, nevertheless, with that faith and diligence that I was able to exercise in the course of that time, in the most candid manner. Wishing, also by this labor of mine, which I did not regret taking up while highly occupied, to gratify studious youth, and to be useful in all ways. And this, so much the more intensely, the more the author himself is suited and pleasant to those who study. For I have found that he does not so much look at what is to be observed in any matter, in every business, as he does so wondrously attemper everything, according to the diversity of persons and the variety of things, that there is no pleasure at all which does not have virtue proposed for it. Which matter indeed contains every secret of the whole world. For hence, what is good and honest shines with its own light and has its own admirers; from there, what is evil and base is to be discerned with its followers. Therefore, virtue cannot exist unless some equal appears, in whom it may exercise and exert its power by overcoming. For as there is no victory without a contest, so no virtue can be called such without some enemy. And thus it happens that no one favors virtue unless he is able to follow it, but to follow it is not easy for everyone. Therefore, whatever can be fashioned and made from opposites, whatever is visible in this living work of heaven and earth and rightly called the world, whatever can come into the mind, be given under sight, and fall into speech, you have here most explicitly. For there is absolutely nothing written or done in this work which has not been sought from certain principles, from causes, I say, which consist in the things themselves. Examples (I do not say of heroes, but of heroines, who even if they hold later places in gender and sex, yet in spirit and talent, and other gifts of nature, yield not at all) you may see here, in all outcomes, not so much unlike, but rather wondrous, and auspices far different from these,