TO THE MOST DISTINGUISHED OR-

DER OF SENATORS OF THE REPUBLIC OF NUREM-

berg, his lords to be observed beyond compare, Thomas Gec-

bauff, by surname Venatorius, commends

himself.

A historiated woodcut initial 'H' featuring a figure, likely a scholar or saint, seated at a desk with an open book within an architectural frame.Moses, in the very vestibule of the book of Genesis, left it written that man received from the Maker of things himself authority over the earth, and thus over all creatures everywhere: he also granted the knowledge of things, which was sufficient for man according to the measure of his status. But as soon as man began to honor the command of the Maker less than was right, and had already offered his ears to the adversary of light, he was immediately stripped of the authority received over created things, and deprived of the enjoyment of the highest happiness for which he had certainly been formed. This was so much so that he was not only an exile very far from true happiness, but he also went miserably blind in the very knowledge of things. And deservedly so. For why would he who is a despiser of the supreme majesty not be punished with the supreme penalty? Yet, so that man would not completely fall from that happiness for which he had once been fashioned, besides the fact that God the omnipotent sent the Word of his goodness to put on flesh, by whose death that stain of contracted impurity might be washed away: he also wished again to lead man, as if through certain steps of the arts, to the knowledge of the most excellent things, so that we may now constantly promise ourselves that all honorable arts have a certain conjunction with virtue itself. For even if today Theology alone rightfully claims for itself the found truth, and Christian piety securely possesses it once found, we ought not to despise other liberal disciplines for the sole reason that Truth is still sought through them. Rather, they should also be admitted into the custom of human life, so that the wits of our youth, which still lack experience in things, do not completely grow wild while they are perpetually deprived of the cultivation of the good arts. For what food provides to men so that they may live, honorable disciplines provide so that they may live well. If you subtract nourishment from bodies, they will immediately cease to live; and as soon as you begin to subtract the honorable arts from the common life of mortals, what will our life itself seem to be other than something approaching most closely to the life of brutes? Therefore, in my opinion, all honorable arts are to youth what rain is to withering meadows, what streams are to gardens, what cultivation is to fields, and what pruning is to vines themselves. Just as the cultivation of the arts adds no little splendor and ornament to human affairs, so the contempt for them leads to the frequent ruin of both morals and the sincerity of life.