To the most wise Senate of the illustrious city of STRASBOURG, OTTO BRUNFELS sends greetings.

THOSE WHO HAVE HELD RIGHT OPINIONS regarding the honoring of magistrates have judged it necessary not merely to receive leading men with outward honor—that is, to uncover the head, to bend the knee, and (just as children marvel at Juno’s bird The peacock, a symbol of pride and splendor) to extol them to the heavens with praises and those titular illusions, tragic and bombastic—but rather to grant them praise for their justice and wisdom. One should think well of them and serve them from the heart, prefer their judgments to our own, and clearly look up to them as if they were Gods, admiring and honoring in them that supreme Orderer original: "κοσμήτωρα" (kosmētōra) - a Greek term for a regulator or commander of an army/world of this world. The divine oracles The Holy Scriptures harmonize with this in many places, while they make them "Gods," while they forbid speaking evil of them, while they decree tithes and the firstfruits of things for them, and finally, while they grant them the right of the sword The legal authority to execute justice or wage war. And I am inclined to think that those who were about to bring the works of ancient authors to light, or to publish some specimen of their own talents for posterity, frequently looked to this when they inscribed their labors either to the greatest Princes or the highest Magistrates. They did this, evidently, not so much to be safer from public envy and the poisonous tongues of slanderous men, as to deserve well of their superiors themselves; thinking, according to the Poet’s sentiment, that it is "not the least of praises to have pleased leading men." A reference to Horace, Epistles 1.17.35

Nor indeed with any other spirit have I dedicated my Gardens original: "Hortos" - referring to his botanical work, the Herbarum Vivae Eicones to your Highnesses, most famous and distinguished men, than to procure goodwill for myself from your Highnesses, and to make it publicly known—in a matter perhaps not so great—what my spirit is toward your Republic, and what I would undergo for your sake in arduous and serious matters, if my strength and means permitted. Furthermore, I did so lest I depart from that praised custom of ancient writers; for if I were to despise it, I might surely be judged either over-confident or of a haughty mind. For as the SUN is the glory of the day, and the MOON shines among the stars of the night, and pearls and gems adorn rings and precious garments: so the images of most famous men and their most splendid names add, as it were, a certain light and authority to small works from their very frontispieces.

Your Highnesses deserve this first on many accounts: both for your singular wisdom, justice, equity, magnificence, liberality, kindness, and piety, by which you are merciful toward all men and wish well to all with fairness; and also for the sake of the best studies and good letters. Since you have most munificently established these in your city—and indeed in every kind of discipline, so that today your school is considered inferior to no gymnasium in all of Germany—my firstfruits were surely owed to no others than to such and so great stars, pillars, and anchors of ours. The same was fitting for my gratitude toward your Republic, lest I be ungrateful, for which I judge that I ought even to face death. This city has nourished me, led me safely and honorably to this age, and fortified my affairs with good laws, the best morals, and the most honorable disciplines. What is it that...