M. Vitruvii ... De architectura libri decem, ad Augustum Caesarem accuratiss. conscripti

GEORGIUS MACHAEROPIOEVS, Printer, to the reader.

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Although among ancient writers one is more useful and worthy of greater praise than another, since there is no one who does not deserve to be read, none of them should be entirely neglected, especially in such a great scarcity. I do not think this should be granted only to antiquity: but because no one in those better ages dared to come out into the public who did not bring some utility with his labor. The same must be felt about the subjects in which they were engaged. For they were not accustomed to undertake anything for treatment unless it was worth the effort to understand. And yet we see some of the ancients, even those who are of the best quality, either despised entirely or lying hidden in the libraries of a few: and never touched by the greater part of students. In that number is this, M. Vitruvius, whose work on Architecture everyone admits is excellent, and especially worthy of reading, yet it is passed over by almost everyone. The name itself is indeed famous; and there are very few, even among those who are moderately learned, who are unaware that Vitruvius wrote on Architecture. But hardly one in a hundred knows what the book contains. This does not happen because the author is bad or inept, or because the type of subject is useless to know: but because those who pursue the study of letters today are too delicate. For they choose either lighter writings, or more pleasant ones, from which they may take delight without great labor. Therefore, because this book of Vitruvius is believed to be somewhat obscure: they recoil from reading it for the most part because of the difficulty. For they cannot reject the writer himself as less suitable. He lived in the first age, and published this work, when true and solid learning was flourishing, or at least still vibrant. And he has always been held by learned men, to whom the authority of judging is granted by the common consent of all, as a good and not common writer of value. It must be confessed, as the thing itself declares, that he does not have a well-polished diction, for he speaks Latin more than is splendid or eloquent.