Pinax Theatri botanici

I pass over many things sent to you that are not found in our regions, which you include under the single volume of a book. Thus you ensure that Dioscorides does not carry off the first rewards of such great praise, nor Matthiolus claim the next for himself; you alone hold both the first and then the second. Let great-souled Kings be silent, who have scarcely yet discovered individual things; let them set aside their pride and their titles. Why should I mention the countless many, when their sick bodies were failing from disease, whom your skill snatched from the verge of death and granted the wretched to prolong their lives? So that Dis may complain, and not falsely, that six hundred souls, snatched from his dark jaws by your art, have been lost to him. Nor has a lesser glory spread abroad on account of the dissected limbs of the human body: in which dexterity you yield to none of the ancients, nor to any of our own age. Perhaps I seem to have said much to you, BAUHIN; yet these would scarcely be the highest summits of the virtues of your genius: but modesty forbids adding more.

A decorative woodcut tailpiece featuring a central mask or cherubic face framed by symmetrical, elaborate scrollwork (strapwork), foliate flourishes, and hanging fruit pendants.