The Life of Pope Leo X in Four Books

Large ornamental drop cap 'E' featuring floral and scrollwork motifs.It is a custom established in the habit of farmers to offer the first fruits of the trees planted by the master's zeal to the master himself; they wish for him to be the first among others to taste the flavors of the fruits and to perceive that sweetness. It seemed appropriate for us to imitate this dutiful custom and to follow the tradition of diligent husbandmen. Since you also have diligently cultivated this field of the Muses, and have planted with your own diligence many noble and foreign stocks within it, it seems that the first fruits belong above all to you; and that they must be consecrated entirely to your most distinguished name and to those of your house who prepared this field, even though they left it uncultivated and beset by thorns. For when (in order that we might at last begin the start of a distinguished work) a great heap of books was being diligently unrolled by us, we came upon the books of Paolo Giovio, in which he professed that he would write the life and achievements of Pope Leo X, and he adorned your entire family with a wonderful richness of wit and abundance of words; and he raised them to the heavens with great and deserved praise. For just as a library is filled with many ancient writers, both Greek and Latin, so too does it abound with monuments of new talents; and no small abundance of authors of a lower age has been gathered there. This has come about from the extraordinary generosity of your lineage, and your supreme love for letters and other noble arts. Therefore, it was decided to publish these first, because they will bring no small light to your affairs, although your house is most illustrious by itself and has long since arrived at the highest degree of honor and dignity. But we did this even more willingly because that Cosimo, whose name you bear, just as you also imitate his virtue;