Via ac ratio scholae illustrium d.d. Rhaetorum qui nomine Trium Foederum nuncupantur

TO THE MAGNIFICENT MAN,
Lord Johannes Saliceus, Vicar of the entire Vulturrena Valtellina among the Rhaetians,
A Lord much to be respected by me,
Sends Greetings.

Large ornamental drop cap 'P' at the beginning of the text.PLATO'S Republic, magnificent man, seems to me less praiseworthy because it is contained entirely in books, and it did not proceed into the forum and the light of men (as much as it is permitted to notice of it). The same must be said, though in a far lesser matter (yet what prevents comparing small things to great?), concerning the institution of our school. For since I was called to this public duty a year and a half ago, there were so many adverse difficulties that the school, which I thought was already nearly erected and established by the name of the Three Leagues, returns at last to these paper pages. This matter (although I wish to say nothing now of those who opposed themselves hand and foot to this most holy institute) must appear all the more, even than that polity of Plato, because, dealing only with the very first beginnings of the school, as much as is sufficient for that rude instruction of boys, we do not have a place to set our foot. What, therefore, is to be done? Truly, that which we often read has happened to those very men of letters, that, compelled from public duties within private walls, they entrusted to letters those things which they could not carry out in deeds: so I (though not at all to be compared with them), since the injuries of times (for so I prefer to say, rather than of men) snatch from us the duty committed to the school, at least I shall publish in letters what it was much more desirable to perform in deeds. While I attempt this, I ask that it be permitted to me to abuse in some way the celebrity of your most famous name, or rather that it may be lawful to use a legitimate appeal to your most just tribunal, so that I may make it testified to all: partly that not even the slightest mark of any fault clings to me; and partly that I may submit to your judgment the form of the school, composed according to the prescription of the edict, so that whether there is to be a place for it or not, approved by your calculation, it may be thought to have carried every point. And that I may not be longer, it belongs to your prudence and magnanimity to know those things without which you have not arrived at this most ample degree of honor, namely that since you are deservedly considered the most learned among the good and the best among the learned, you may undertake not only the judgment, but also, if there be need, the most honorable patronage of virtue and doctrine. Farewell.

Sondrio, on the Ides of April. In the Year 1584.

Most devoted to your amplitude
Raphael Eglin.