E P I S T L E.

Receive, therefore, this compendious summary of the entire inheritance, as a kind of legacy of love and a token of respect; others will each be able to enter upon their own portion hereafter. You have here a brief compendium of all natural philosophy, in which you will discern—as if in a single glance at a single tablet—the first principles of nature, the heavens themselves (that peerless book of nature, as it were), the vicissitudes of fleeting and perishable things, the soul, and the rest of those things which make up this most beautiful universe. Moreover, you will recognize the character of natural history, so very like that which you yourself, with such brevity and purity and with such wonderful simplicity, most wisely fashion concerning the deeds of the Venetians. I would say more, were it not that Ermolao reminds me that a preface seems long enough when measured against a compendium. Wherefore I shall say in brief: your virtues and your merits so comprise the virtues and merits of all, just as that obligation by which I am bound to you is wont to include and encompass all other obligations and debts. Farewell. Venice, the third day before the Calends of December, 1544.