⚠The bottom of the page contains handwritten additions in a later hand, which are slightly faded but legible. Some marginal notes are clipped or tightly bound.

On the Music of Cerone, Book I.

The Author’s Affection.

Comparison.

On the other hand, joined with the desire to serve the Spanish nation, like a useless apprentice to a wise painter, I determined to make this sketch, or (better said) rough draft, and to outline with my little knowledge the rules and documents of Music: leaving it to the expert masters in this profession to add the colors, fulfill whatever faults there may be, and treat more clearly what I did not know how to explain. I surrendered myself, then, to the force of the reasons given to me, and trusting in the Lord, in the Most Holy Virgin, and in the intercessions of the blessed Saint Cecilia, the particular advocate of Musicians, I subjected myself in everything and for everything to the labor, without pretension of human praise, but only for the glory of the same Lord, the increase of His divine worship, the convenience of those who desire to know this Art; and finally for my satisfaction and the discharge of my conscience. I well know that the work exceeds my strengths and my natural and artificial knowledge, but I trust in God, who has inflamed my will to begin it, that He will enlighten my understanding to finish it with great fruit. And I am almost certain and sure that there shall be no new Catos to give me the sweet reprimand that the prudent Cato gave to Postumius Albinus: who, writing Histories in Greek and asking in their proem A preface or introduction for pardon if they were not as perfectly and completely written as required because he was a Roman man writing in a foreign tongue. Disguisedly, then, Cato said to him in response that it was right he should be forgiven if he had written them by public decree and petition of all Greece: as if to say, who had forced him to write in a language he did not know very well? For it would be better to be without fault than to excuse it. The same, I say, could be said to me as well: but He who knows all knows who forced me to write in this language, and also the reason why I have written more in this time than another, and He knows the hearts of men very well.

St. Cecilia, Advocate of Musicians.

Cato prudently reprimands Postumius.

Note.

Comparison.

I trust in God that this present treatise will be profitable to many in the profession, and that by all those who have good hearts it will not fail to be received with a cheerful face; and if by chance some take with the left hand what I offer them with the right, and others wish to defame it, or better said, to kill it, let them still be warned they cannot carry out their evil desire: rather they will remain like the wretched moths original: "mariposas" - butterflies/moths who, wishing to obscure and extinguish the clear light of the candle, burn themselves; and while the candle remains lit with its clarity, they pay with their death for the temerity of their boldness.

Whoever publishes his studies puts himself in the power of all to be judged.

Jerome in the Rule for Monks.

In the 1st [Book of] Topics.

We well know that whoever sets out to write and publish what he writes obliges himself to be judged by many, and even reproved; for there is never a lack of those who feel passion against the good nature and wit of another: nor is anything so easy for one who is always idle and always sleeping as to set himself to dispute and treat of the labor and vigils of others. This is what Saint Jerome said in these words: Nothing is so easy as for the idle and the sleeping to dispute concerning the labor and vigils of others. original Latin: "Nihil tam facile, quàm ociosum & dormientem de aliorum labore, & vigilijs disputare." Nor for that reason did I wish to stop writing, even if there were many more detractors and biters: because as Aristotle says: It is foolish to be anxious because anyone asserts things contrary to the opinions of the wise. original Latin: "Quilibet contraria opinionibus sapientis asserere solicitum esse stultum est." He says that it is stupidity and madness for a man to be distressed because anyone affirms what is contrary to the opinions of the wise: especially since there is nothing under the hea—

10 Joseph Estevan was born on the third of August of 1720, Sunday, the day of the Finding of Saint Stephen. The "Invention" or finding of the relics of St. Stephen Between five and six in the morning. He was baptized the following day of said Sunday; his Godfather was Joseph Perez Pastor.