A True Recipe

...be the means by which it will be possible to harvest more than four million bushels of grain per year in France, more than is customary, provided that one is willing to follow my advice: which I hope your subjects will do, after having received the warning that I have given in this book. Item; because you are a powerful and Magnanimous Lord, and of good judgment, I have found it good to design for you the plan of a garden as beautiful as any that has ever been in the world, except for that of the terrestrial Paradise, which garden design, I assure myself, you will find to be of good invention.

Item, in this book is contained the design and arrangement of a fortress city, such as until now one has not heard mention of the like. There are in said book several other fruitful things, which I will leave to be told by those who, in reading it, will retain them and will recount them to you. I have not placed the portrait of said garden in this book, for the reason that many are unworthy to see it, and singularly the enemies of virtue and of good ingenuity, because my poverty and occupation with my art have not permitted it. I know that some ignorant enemies of virtue and slanderers will say that the design of this garden is merely a dream, and will want, perhaps, to compare it to the dream of Polyphile a reference to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a famous 15th-century allegorical novel, or will want to say that it would be of too great expense, and that one could not find a convenient place for the construction of said garden, according to the design. To this I respond, that there will be found more than four thousand noble houses in France, near which will be found many convenient places to build said garden, according to the tenor of my design. And as for the expense, there are in France many gardens that have cost more than this one would cost. When it pleases you to do me the honor of employing me in this affair, I will not fail to make a portrait of it for you suddenly, and even will put it into execution, if it pleased you to do so. And as for the design and arrangement of the fortress city, I know that some will say that one should not stop at my word, insofar as I have not exercised the military state, and that it is impossible to know how to do these things, without having first seen many batteries and assaults of cities. To this I respond, that the work I have commenced for My Lord the Constable provides enough testimony of the gift that God has given me to close their mouths: for if they make an inquiry, they will find that