Familiar Letters

is necessary. Therefore, I give the greatest thanks to Coluccio, my father and teacher, who brought me such a benefit by imposing this task. For before, I had only seen Plato; now, however, I feel I have known him. If I ever finish his books and make them Latin as we desire, you, my Niccolò, will not despise whatever you have read until now in comparison to the majesty of that man. For there is in him much urbanity and the highest method and subtlety of disputing. Most abundant divine sentiments are conveyed with the wonderful pleasantness of the disputants and an incredible richness of speech. In his oration, there is the highest ease and much that is admirable, which the ἀφελεία simplicity/naturalness Greeks call apheleia. For there is nothing of straining, nothing forced. All these things are given as if by a man who has words and their laws in his power, with the best and richest nature itself expressing all the concepts of the mind with the greatest ease and grace. Such is Plato among the Greeks, whom, unless I show him to be the same among the Latins, let them know openly that he was made worse by my fault, and let them not think they are reading Plato, but material ineptitudes. But I promise that I will work so that this does not happen. I do not promise, however, that I will succeed. For I would not dare to promise such things about myself. That, certainly, if I am not mistaken, I will provide for you: that you may read your Plato without difficulty. I also add that with the greatest...
He praises the books of Plato.