Apo kōpēs eis to bēma: Positiones Peri tēs tōn katamēniōn epochēs

(imitating your father, a man judged most highly even by the most serene Republic of Venice) keep me within limits, so that I cannot be said to have praised you openly to your face. If I then consider the authority and renown of the name of each of you, and the antiquity, excellence, dignity, and eminence of your family and lineage among our illustrious Raetians, and among foreign Princes, Emperors, Kings, and Republics, it must be my greatest wish that I be most highly recommended to you. For if the illustrious deeds, dignities, and privileges of you and your fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, etc., brothers, nephews, and relatives were to be included in writing, I would know that a most ample volume would have to be written by me. For if something were at least to be added concerning your brothers, Strenuous SIR KNIGHT BAPTISTA—to be silent about other illustrious ancestors—the most excellent men, Lord GUBERTUS, most eloquent of legal experts and most expert of the eloquent, and Lord RODOLPHUS, supreme judge of Malantij, to whose faith and government Vulturena was commended with great justice and praise, how far would my oration grow? Indeed, if something were to be said about them, the honesty of the matter would in no way allow me to pass over in silence their sons, your nephews, and ornaments of the Salici family: of whom one had Lord BAPTISTA, most excellent Doctor of Law, Lord VESPASIANUS, most worthy Vicar of Vulturena, Lord GUIDO ANTONIUS, and others as sons; the other had Lord ANDREAS, notable sons of preeminent fathers. I do not wish now to speak of the third brother, who has passed away, Lord ANTONIUS, and his sons Lord HERCULES, Knight of the Golden Order, and former Governor of Vulturena and Captain of the most Christian King of the French, and Lord DIETEGANUS, of whom the latter died without offspring, while the former left Lord ANTONIUS and ANDREAS as heirs of the lineage and patrimony, and thus of their virtues, and Lords of Riedperg.