Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music

desire for glory, they pay no mind to such expenses; and they are accustomed to making them abundantly and quite willingly. Yet, you are all the more remarkable in this regard, as your actions, accompanied by an equal humanity, exceed the common practice of such men. And what greater sign of a courteous and benign soul could you have given me than having many times set aside your most grave and important business to explain to me, with your own living voice, the obscure sentiments of the ancient and venerable writers? Their concepts, understood by so few, you adjusted so perfectly to the mark original: "al segno" - meaning with precision or hitting the bullseye that one could well believe you had been present in those happy centuries when there was a full and complete knowledge of the faculty of Music Music: here referring to the Greek "mousike," encompassing poetry, melody, and rhythm; a knowledge which, in the course of many ages, has declined to such a low point that until today no one has been found who has given an account of it conforming to the truth and to what those ancients left written about it.

This consideration moved me to attempt—using the talent with which nature endowed me and the labors of many years spent on this matter, aided together by the favor and liberality of Your Most Illustrious Lordship—to see if I could do enough to return this faculty, if not to its original state, at least to a greater state of knowledge than has been achieved, in my opinion, by the moderns who have written of it. Because this work can bring both benefit and delight to those who come after us, I judged it the duty of a sincere man, not at all envious of the good of others, to give public notice of it; so that those who read may learn if there is anything good herein, and strive to supply what my own insufficiency may have lacked. For I do not wish to believe that I have so thoroughly chased the shadows from the writings of the ancients that no one else, invited and aided by my efforts, might add some greater clarity to them.

Having done this according to my strengths, and being bound to publish these works for the reasons just mentioned, the memory of Your Most Illustrious Lordship immediately presented itself to me, to whom I judged these labors of mine were owed. Since I received from you those greatest conveniences required to bring such a work to its end, it was without doubt my duty to send it to you. It is required that he who is supported and benefited should return the due reward to his benefactor; and if it does not come to you with that polished speech that I owed, and if it is not yet rendered into the Latin language Galilei mentions a Latin translation was intended to follow, though his primary work remained in the Italian vernacular to reach a wider audience—as it soon will be, together with my other work—blame the bad faith of certain printers in Venice. These men not only (against all duty) delayed me for several months to please someone who, perhaps moved by envy, sought to prevent these labors of mine from coming out, or who wished to honor himself with my many sleepless nights; but in the end, they nearly denied me my own original manuscript, which had been delivered to them last October so that they might publish it. Before I could wrest it from their hands, I had, for the reason mentioned, printed two-thirds of it here in Florence from a draft remaining with me. And with this, making an end, with all reverence I kiss your hand, praying you to accept this work of mine with favor, looking not at me, but at your own propriety and most singular humanity.

From Florence, the first day of June 1581.