M A X I M I L I A N

TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,

A small printer's ornament, known as a fleuron, serves as a typographic divider.

A decorative woodcut initial letter Q is adorned with floral and foliate motifs, a common feature of 16th-century Renaissance printing.
TWO causes can encourage a man of my humble station to present so great a KING with so small a gift. Both of these have now impelled me to do this: namely, my very great goodwill toward your Majesty, and the great rarity of the gift itself. Although it is small, its value is not to be despised. Your admirable virtues have stirred and won for you an eternal goodwill. These virtues are so great that those who have not witnessed them with their own eyes might give only moderate credit to others who recount the rarest, though truest, details about them. But those who have observed these virtues in person, diligently and accurately, will confess that they suffer from a great poverty of speech and expression as soon as they desire to speak eloquently upon their full grandeur. I myself was an eyewitness to these brilliant qualities while staying for some time this past September in Pressburg, in your Kingdom of Hungary. I recognized them in the clearest way, having explored them through various means.
original: "Poſonio" (Posonium). This is the Latin name for Pressburg, the modern-day city of Bratislava, where Maximilian was crowned King of Hungary in 1563.

Library Stamp: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ROME, VITTORIO EMANUELE

Regarding the rarity of this gift, which is indeed small in its physical size, I will speak in as few words as possible. As I searched with all the effort of my mind, it occurred to me that in human life...
original catchword: "næ vitæ" continuing "Humanæ vitæ" from the previous line.