TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS

LORD, AND MY MOST

REVERED PATRON,

LORD GIOVANNI BARDI

OF THE COUNTS OF VERNIO.

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It is truly too difficult a thing to be able to offer a fair exchange to those from whom we have received many and singular benefits. This is because it is necessary that the one to whom we are indebted must come to need our labor, and it must suit us to be of such a character that, when the occasion arises, we are able to perform it. Since these circumstances happen to few people and only rarely, it follows that many are accused of being ungrateful, as if they were so by choice. But it is not so; for fortune should not hold dominion over such a noble action as doing good and returning pleasure to one's benefactors. If that were the case, acting virtuously would not be within our own power—a thing most unseemly to think, let alone to say.

If this is true, then, as it most certainly is, I could well sustain with a confident spirit, Lord GIOVANNI, the debt I hold toward Your Illustrious Lordship. For you, as a connoisseur of good letters Refers to the "Belles-lettres" or humanistic studies of the Renaissance, including grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. and practiced in the arts that befit a true Gentleman, have never sought from me anything that exceeded my strength. Because my powers are weak, I have never been able to employ them in the service of Your Illustrious Lordship in such a way that I might escape the name of "ingrate," except by that single part which I just mentioned remains to those who lack opportunity and power.

Even assuming I were worth something on my own, I would still be worth nothing in comparison to the many and singular benefits received at all times from the courteous hand of Your Illustrious Lordship. For how could I, even in the smallest part, compensate for the comforts you have given me to be able to attend with a quiet mind to those studies to which I devoted myself from my earliest years, and which, without your help, I would not have brought to the state in which they are now found? To this is added the readiness of your spirit in having various books and instruments brought at my request from the most distant parts of Europe, without which it would have been impossible to have that knowledge of Music which we now possess through them.

Furthermore, so that this science might be shown by me to the world much more clearly than it has perhaps been since its loss The author refers to the "loss" of ancient Greek musical knowledge, which Renaissance theorists sought to recover., it did not seem a burden to you to provide me with travel funds and to lend me your favor in every other opportune thing, so that I might search many places. From there, I have drawn from the customs of the inhabitants, from ancient records, and from men intelligent in the science of music, the greatest and truest information possible. These acts of liberality, although they may in some way be shared by certain others who, provided with wealth and support, either by natural instinct or by...