AD ANDREAM COMITISSAM.

are given, if they have escaped the spirit of a man and, with celebrated wit and conspicuous virtue, dare and perform even the most difficult things, their strengths are to be exalted. And so, that they should not be deservedly defrauded of their own, it came into my mind to gather into one place, from those whom memory recalls, some, for the honor of their own glory, and to add to these some from among the many whom either boldness, or strengths of wit and industry, or the gift of nature, or the grace or injury of fortune, made notable. And to connect to these a few who, even if they did not do anything worth remembering, still provided the greatest causes for deeds. Nor do I want it to seem incongruous to the reader if they find Medea, Flora, and Sempronia mixed with Penelope, Lucretia, and Sulpitia as the most modest matrons, for they had a very great, but perhaps pernicious, talent. For it is not my intention to take this name of "famous" so strictly that it always seems to end in virtue, but rather, by the good peace of the readers, to draw it into a wider sense and understand as "famous" those whom I have known to be most well-known to the world by common report, of whatever deed, since I remember having often read, among Leonidas, Scipio, Cato, and Fabricius—illustrious men—the seditious Gracchi, the treacherous Hannibal, the traitor Jugurtha, Sulla and Marius bloodied by civil blood, and Crassus, equally rich and greedy, and others such. But since to have exalted things worthy of memory with praises and to have depressed abominable things with rebukes will sometimes be not only for the glory of the generous but also for the ignominy of the base, I thought it proper to have drawn the reins back a little from the unhappy ones, and that what seems to have been taken away from beauty by the turpitude of some, I have sometimes thought to bring into history as some delightful charms of virtue, and to add the goads of detestation of crimes; and thus it will happen that, with the mixed pleasure of histories, utility will enter into sacred minds. And lest I seem to have touched only the summits of things in the ancient manner, I judge it not only useful but opportune to have extended those things that I could have known from trustworthy people into a somewhat long history, thinking that the deeds of these women will please women no less than men. Since they are for the most part ignorant of histories, they need and rejoice in a more wordy discourse. However, it seemed that I should not omit that, except for the first mother, I have mixed almost none of the sacred women, Hebrew and Christian, with all these pagans, for they do not fit together well enough, nor do they seem to walk with an equal step. For these, on account of eternal and true glory, often compelled themselves into a contrary endurance of humanity, imitating the holy commands, both the orders and the footsteps, where those others, stirred by some gift or instinct of nature, or rather by the desire for this momentary radiance, attained things not without sharp strength of mind, or, by the impulse of urgent fortune, sometimes endured the heaviest things. Furthermore, these [Christian women], shining with true and indefailing light in the deserved eternity, not only live most famously, but we know their virginity, chastity, holiness, virtue, and invincible constancy in overcoming both the concupiscences of the flesh and the punishments of tyrants, as their merits demand, to have been described in single volumes by pious men, sacred letters, and those conspicuous for venerable majesty; where we begin, as has already been stated and demonstrated by no one, to describe their merits—not in any special published volume—as if to pay back some kind of reward. To which pious work may God, the Father of all things, be present, and may He grant that I have written as a supporter of the labor taken up, for His true praise.