Elegantiarum Linguae Latinae Libri Sex

Library ownership stamp of the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Roma, in the upper left margin.

ANDREAS RABIRIUS OF BRESCIA
TO HIS LAURENTIUS FULLONIUS,
GREETINGS.

I have often prayed with every wish, excellent Fullonius, that a time might one day arise when you could understand more clearly how highly I esteem you, and when I might make your greatest kindnesses toward me known to posterity. For although, both when present and when absent through letters, I had given you many clear signs of my singular benevolence toward you and of my grateful spirit—so that if I could not be your equal in returning gratitude, I would at least show that I was not overcome by love—yet I was not satisfied, as one who greatly desired both to declare my love to you more openly and to leave it testified to posterity: that, indeed, the will to return the favor never failed me, but the opportunity did. Nor was this reason alone moving me to act, because I knew that I owed you a great deal; but there were also very many other, and by no means common, causes: the antiquity of a friendship established since childhood, the bonds of country, the union of our lives and spirits, the fellowship of our studies. Yet these things I share with you. Those things are your own: the supreme elegance and probity of your character, the sweetness of your speech, the sharpness of your wit, your inner learning, which render you most dear to all. And by Hercules, I do not say this because I am deceived by excessive love, or because I wish to offer this to your ears, but because I cannot write otherwise than as the matter is. And I am so far from repenting of this judgment and my praise, that I rather fear the reproach of negligence and envy, because I have only briefly touched upon the gifts of your mind, than that I should be said to have attributed too much to your virtue. Wherefore, I do not know whether I should rejoice more that fortune has at last answered my wishes, or lament that there is in no way as much eloquence in me as your praises deserve to be celebrated. In this, however, both my dutiful will and the greatness of the matter will excuse me. For I preferred to undertake the impudence of writing with benevolence than, if I had not done so, to be suspected of the crime of an ungrateful spirit. Indeed, I certainly hope this will be an undoubted sign of my highest love, that I have chosen you alone above all others to whom I wished these, as it were, first fruits of my talent to be dedicated. You shall accept this in such a way as to think that I have done it not so much for the sake of declaring my will toward you, as having been led by judgment: because, since you are most polished in this genre of writing, to no other ought this very [work of] elegance...