A wide woodcut headpiece features symmetrical floral scrolls, acanthus leaves, and two human figures reclining towards a central pedestal that displays the monogram "PG".

TO GUILLAUME

DE LAMOIGNON,

PRESIDENT

OF THE SUPREME

SENATE OF FRANCE.

An ornamental woodcut initial 'V' is decorated with scrolling foliage and floral motifs.

"See what you are doing, Scipio; this sturgeon is for few men," warned a guest who was not without wit. We see what we are doing, MOST ILLUSTRIOUS GUILLAUME. This author, however many his volumes, is nevertheless for few men: but for those like you, but for illustrious guests, but for gluttons of great books. And he himself is most worthy of you, and you of him. GEROLAMO CARDANO, that cunning Italian, a man of versatile genius and a doctor of a hundred arts, knocks at your halls, seeking a patron for his offspring, which he now desires to display to Europe for the first time, new and numerous. Yet he wished to use us as nurses and educators, so that we might place these offspring, if not fresh from the womb, at least damp from the press, upon your threshold.