Ioannis Boccatii de Certaldo insigne opus De claris mulieribus

advancements, and ends. For here, as if in a theater, you will see one coming forth who gave some cause for the human race to be propagated into the immense; another you will recognize who devised how this same thing might be beautifully warmed and produced, with the help of middle things, bread and drink. Add that some discovered letters and laws by which human affairs might be rightly provided for in common, and by which it might be conveniently known what is to be sought and what is to be fled. There are those who studied all virtues in general: this one, so that she might be pious, as far as concerns the uniquely worshiping of God; that one, so that she might be just, as far as concerns charity toward one's neighbor; another, so that she might be temperate, so that no one might privately harm her own nature, left examples for posterity. Likewise, on the contrary, you will find many of whom you would say they had completely conspired and banded together in this, to take away all honesty, all appearance of humanity from common life, indulging their own affections, and pursuing with tooth and nail the baseness which is both the root and companion of all vices, etc. This, therefore, is that which I warned a little before: that with reason applied, we should weigh exactly how great is the power, how great the rationale, and finally how great a sacrament is man himself, through whom the great deeds of God and the deeds of men are so proclaimed and admired with such spirit. Therefore, this present history will give how, and by what reason, the deeds of others are to be known, so that you are never destitute of certain experience; likewise, how from past events (which is properly the office of a wise man) one ought to knowingly look into the future in all parts; indeed, what is more admirable, how one ought to prefer the future to the present, the divine to the earthly, and the eternal to the brief. For in this, all the writings of all the ancients, and the monuments of deeds performed, and whatever finally there is of things anywhere, written under any kind of veil or fiction, act to excite human sloth, to fortify against dangers with all kinds of examples, and to prescribe the way and matter of learning, by what means one should progress toward further things. In sum, so that everyone may certainly know how equal the rationale is, and how necessary history is, and how sufficiently it is suited to instituting one's own life for each. This being so laid out, it will easily be clear how much utility he who occupies himself with judgment and reason in any kind of writing, not only in this one, which is wondrously various and copious, can take, and how much fruit he can make. To this end, the author himself was an outstanding poet and interpreter of poets, as is clearly to be seen here, and in other works which he made, which are exceptionally famous. May God the Greatest and Best grant that everyone may take from there what will be most salutary, and transfer it all to the use of life, as rightly as possible. But that will happen when it is perceived that examples are proposed not for glory, but for virtue. He who does not know this becomes like tragic actors, who, even when the costume is laid aside, imitate the manners of the characters they were presenting as most important. Therefore, we must take care not to be enticed by the sweetness of reading to follow pleasures, while losing the fruit. For it is a huge crime, and a sin worthy of no forgiveness, to be solicited only by the appearance of shining glory (which for the most part