TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND TRULY

MAGNANIMOUS PRINCE AND LORD,

LORD PHILIP, COUNT PALATINE OF THE RHINE, AND

Duke of both Bavarias, etc., his most merciful Lord and Patron,

Petrus Apianus, ordinary professor of Mathematics in the gymnasium

of Ingolstadt, prays for health and safety:

Decorative woodcut initial V depicting several scholars in robes, possibly professors or clerics, gathered in a library or study around a lectern and books. I am often accustomed to wonder to myself, Most Illustrious Prince, at the so inhuman nature of certain men, and so foreign to all humanity, that they do not hesitate to attack all the best and most noble arts with insults, and to tear them apart in wretched ways, not without the greatest contempt; they are truly worthy themselves of being cast out from the number of men. Nor is the purpose of those much different who do not indeed despise all letters at once, but measure them only by that lucrative and unworthily gainful utility, so that they leave hardly any among the number of liberal arts that is not, as they themselves say, for the sake of earning bread. From this we see it happen that the honor due to the arts almost perishes in this age of ours—otherwise most fortunate in the progress of good arts—hence we see all philosophy now languishing, and especially those parts of it which serve less for the earning of bread. But we ought, in turn, to be consoled in this matter by the fact that in all past ages there were Zoili and Momi, who preferred to rebuke anything rather than be able to imitate it; nor were haters of this kind found only among the common folk, for even the greatest men have so far defected from the genuine spirit of true humanity that it is to be lamented that the Emperor Valentinian, son of Gratian, burned with an immense hatred of letters, and thereafter the Emperor Licinius also was so hostile to letters that he called them a virus and a public pest—but why, I ask, should he not have hated things of which he himself was so devoid that he could not even sign his own decrees? Most of the ancient Romans thought more rightly, each of whom was held the more excellent the more he was versed in the solid arts, and especially in the studies of philosophy and eloquence. It would be superfluous here to commemorate the Fabii, the Scipios, the Laelii, the Ciceros, the Catos, and the rest of those men most famous for their studies of wisdom. Who would not admire the exceptional zeal of Augustus? Among the Greeks, who does not rightly commend the truly royal genius of Alexander the Great, which was not poorly instructed by the best of preceptors? Certainly, to add a single example from our own people as well, the Emperor Sigismund not only fostered the studies of good letters himself and favored all the learned and literate remarkably, but he also frequently accused the other Princes of Germany who hated Latin letters. Furthermore, he was even rebuked by certain people because he fostered men of humble birth who were erudite. "I," he said, "love those whom I see excel others in virtues and learning, by which I measure nobility." Indeed, he gave a noble example worthy of an Emperor for all Princes to imitate. But all these things I in vain...