TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND

EXCELLENT LORD: THE LORD

COSIMO DE' MEDICI: DUKE

OF FLORENCE MY MOST

OBSERVANT LORD.

A large ornamental initial G begins the main text.

GREAT and indeed marvelous was truly, most illustrious and excellent Lord of mine, the goodness and kindness of our Marsilio Ficino: a student certainly worthy of that great Cosimo, for whose illustrious memory your Excellency still retains his name. Since he was not content with having given Plato to the Latins, illustrated and explained with many of his very learned writings, and desiring no less to benefit all those who had knowledge of this our language alone, just as he had desired before to satisfy the honorable and useful persuasions of your MAGNIFICENT LORENZO, he deigned to translate the Commentary which he had composed in Latin on the Love of Plato into our maternal language, addressing it to Bernardo del Nero