Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

it. Therefore, to you, Cosimo, most humane man and ornament of Christian nobility, this work has been dedicated, you who both pushed us toward it primarily by your authority, and, being most learned in both pagan and our own philosophy, know how to distinguish and judge easily how great the difference is between the two. And not only that, but you yourself will also judge our labor. For I allow the judgment to be rendered to you regarding our little talent all the more willingly because your singular benevolence, joined to the maturity and gravity of your judgment, will grant our errors easier pardon and will consult our modesty, which, fearing a harsher censure, desires to have the same person as both censor and patron. Surely, since the author inserts many and diverse verses, both those of others and his own, which seems to depart from the gravity of history, I have deliberately omitted translating them, yet in such a way that I have not allowed anything necessary to be missing from the meaning. At the same time, a hoarse voice has declined a long discourse, for which it would by no means have sufficed, lest it stir laughter among the listeners. Many things have indeed been inserted that are lacking in modesty, both sayings and deeds, and that which might stir shame; the law of interpreting, and reason itself, truly persuaded that they not be omitted.