DEDICATORY EPISTLE

...published by Your Holiness into the light openly testify, these examples, I say, ought to stir us all to an industrious way of life, lest we undergo the stain of laziness. To escape this myself, I have been accustomed to spend several hours every day reading and writing books, not only in Brescia original: "Brixia"; Quirini was the Bishop of Brescia and a noted scholar-librarian., occupied by Episcopal cares, but even in the very Conclave original: "Comitiis"; referring to the Papal Conclave of 1740. which we have just completed; burning for even greater things according to the thinness of my talent, after the frequent conversations I held with Your Holiness in that Conclave sharpened my mind more and more toward those very studies.

Furthermore, those same conversations sharpened [my mind] (which is of greatest importance) toward the increase of Divine Worship; for from them it became even more evident to me—which I had known before—that Your Holiness so loved the beauty of God in Ancona and Bologna original: "Bononia", over which cities you presided as Pastor, that you devoted a great amount of money to decorating the sacred Basilicas (I pass over the spacious Houses Likely referring to seminaries or clerical residences. built from the foundations in that other City for the education of the Clergy); indeed, this pious munificence The quality of being generous or performing great acts of charity. of yours has proceeded so far that you entered into a plan to transport to Bologna a Tabernacle for the Eucharist original: "Eucharisticum Tabernaculum" crafted in Rome by your command with excellent workmanship, and therefore at the greatest expense, from gilded bronze. While you were revealing to me the reasoning for this plan and its long, difficult transport, you in turn gladly received what I myself reported concerning certain sacred ornaments of rare size, for which I was putting diligent effort The original Latin text breaks here at "ope-", with the catchword "ram" completing the word "operam," meaning effort or work. into bringing from Rome to Brescia in like manner...