M. Vitruvii Pollonis de architectura libri decem ad Caesarem Augustum omnibus omnium editionibus longe emendatiores collatis veteribus exemplis

...go out into the world. You alone, King of kings (as Arrian writes of Alexander), Βασιλικώτατε most royal one, and στρατηγῶν ἀξιοστρατηγότατε most worthy of generals among generals, occurred to me, unless I feared that something might be taken away from your Majesty. Vitruvius, an Italian, wrote his books to Octavius Augustus. I, a Frenchman, write to FRANCIS VALOIS. He wrote to an emperor who, when he had found a city of brick, left it of marble; I write to a King by whose auspices and liberality the most noble temples, palaces, and fortifications in the whole world have been built, who led the way so that what was the most beautiful house in Gaul might not hold the hundredth place. While I was in suspense, the authority of my Maecenas, Georges d'Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez and most prudent, vigilant, and honest legate of your Majesty to the Supreme Pontiff Paul, prevailed. He kept proposing that royal kindness of yours, known and praised so many times by many; that a prince, just as he claims for himself a part of his fortunes, so too does he rightly claim a part of the fruits of the talents of his dominion, and that it is the duty of one who gives to look more at the spirit than at what is offered, and that whatever might have been sinned by me in that part, it should be allowed to be assigned to him alone. These are the things, great King, which inclined me—though modesty called me back—and impelled me to wish to dedicate and address these corrections and annotations to your Majesty, on a most difficult author, whose stormy and trackless sea we first plowed. If I learn that these were not entirely unwelcome, it will be the reason why I shall finally complete the books I have begun with serious studies: on the generation of stones, on the causes of colors and images represented by so many things in lines, on the cutting and polishing of marble, on the art of engraving gems, which is called glyptice gem-cutting, on painting and the certain composition and mixture of colors, on dyeing and fulling, on pottery, on leatherworking and shoemaking, on glassmaking, on weaving, and whatever is finished by the spindle or by the loom. May your Majesty be well. Rome, on the Kalends of August, 1544.