Foreword to the Books on Proportions original Greek: συμμετριῶν (symmetriōn) of Albrecht Dürer, addressed to the most distinguished and learned Christophorus Coler.

Since, at your great urging, I had undertaken to translate into the Latin language these books by Albrecht, the dearest of your friends, it seemed appropriate to give you an account of my entire translation. This was done so that it might be recommended to readers by your judgment, and so that I might enter upon the path of this edition less fearfully, as if with you as my guide. Therefore, when I understood that the effort I had spent on the translation did not displease you, I decided to set forth the principles of my reasoning in this place. This allows me to show that you have approved of what I have done, and in this way, the work might appear more distinguished. I also hoped that this would bring some benefit to readers by sharing something of our spirit and thoughts. If any grateful work has been performed by us in this regard, the readers must credit it all to you, most distinguished sir, who acted not only as the author of the idea but also as the one who drove me to complete it.

To Christophorus Coler, Distinguished Counselor

Since by your persuasion I took up the task of translating Dürer's books on painting, I decided to explain to you before publication what principles we followed in naming things throughout the entire work, so that according to your opinion, those choices might be retained or changed.

The author investigated, in the shaping of suitable and well-proportioned bodies, exactly how far certain parts should be from others. This elegant and beautiful arrangement of limbs is what constitutes beauty; therefore, in translating the title, we noted that Symmetry the harmonious relationship of parts to a whole is taught in these books. This was first given to painting, as Pliny Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist and author of "Natural History" says, by Parrhasius, but was practiced most by Euphranor, who also composed volumes on the subject. Although the Latin language lacks a specific certain name for this, we may translate it as "commensuration" or "proportion" original: "commensum commensurationemue". And so, through art which follows nature, a method is sought by which everything is made in the expression of forms just as it would have been in reality.

In the measurement of bodies, there are two paths: one of height and the other of width. As you know, we have understood width in two ways. For even in profile drawings, as marked on a flat surface, I thought it would be sufficiently understood that this refers to "thickness," so that respect is given to the solidity of the body. To the same point belongs what they call "depth," as when one recedes from the right-hand parts, such as in a head turned sideways—for example, from the eyes to the ears. The measurement of height is indeed that of length. But we have considered the foot or the heel in a particular way. For the foot is long in a transverse sense, and thus the designation for a slanted part is given as a perpendicular height.

Nor should it escape you if we sometimes simply name "parts"—it should be understood that we mean the beginnings or the tops of those parts, as we have generally added, though I think it was not always necessary and in some places even redundant. However, in working on someone else's book, we decided not to be too bold. For who would require the addition of "top" when "sinciput" the front/top part of the skull is said, especially since this word is formed from "top of the head" original: "summo capite", unless I am mistaken? Furthermore, since the author sought out the names of the parts of the human body with almost painful diligence so that the measurements might be more certain, and even imposed new names on some, I trust that students of this translation will understand the difficulty even in this part. For I pass over the rest, which themselves could not have seemed easy, especially in a work of this kind which we were to imitate...