BY JOANNES ANDREAS LEENNIUS

Since you wish it to be so, I am undertaking this task so that, through my guidance, the well-being of students may be preserved. This labor has certainly occupied and exercised us for a long enough time. Having finally sifted through the modest collection of books in our profession, I have selected for you these books by Marsilio Ficino A celebrated Italian scholar and priest (1433–1499), central to the Renaissance revival of Plato. titled "On the Threefold Life" original: "De Vita triplici"; a famous medical and philosophical treatise on the health of scholars.. This author seemed to me not unworthy of your sharp judgment, and highly suitable to be handled by the hands of many students, provided he comes forth into the light free from bookworms and moths, and more thoroughly cleansed of errors. For the copies of this author that have been scattered in public until now are so filled with faults that there is almost no use for those parts which were well written. The fair reader will easily perceive that we, on the contrary, have taken care to publish the meditations of such a great man free from "cancers" original: "carcinomastis"; here referring to corruptions or "cankers" in the text.. In addition to our efforts, the exceedingly elegant typefaces of Joannes Bebelius, the skillful copperplate engraver chalcographus: a printer or engraver working with copper or brass, have been added. Wishing now to offer you a taste of these, he has provided those things he is producing to be judged publicly—as the saying goes, "recognizing the lion by its claws." Furthermore, there is no reason for us to be intensely anxious about winning you over to this work, since the narrowness of a letter does not allow for it, and the matter speaks for itself original Greek: "αὐτὴ ἑαυτὴν αὐλεῖ" (the thing itself plays its own flute). According to the most ample judgment of Angelo Poliziano A renowned Renaissance humanist and poet., just as Orpheus’s lyre recalled Eurydice from the underworld, so has Ficino’s lyre recalled Platonic wisdom. Finally, he has pursued his praises with this couplet:

Character, genius, the Muses, and supreme wisdom—
If you wish me to say them all in one name: Marsilio.