THEODORE THE GREEK OF THESSALONICA TO POPE NICHOLAS V, SUPREME PONTIFF.

A small decorative woodcut initial 'Q' features a seated figure or stylized foliage, marking the beginning of the main text block.

What great joy men of our age might feel, most holy father, I understand fully not from a distance—as I used to hear in times past—but now, living with you, through the experience of these very things. Indeed, I see that the old and praised sentiment of Plato, which asserts that it is a remedy for cities laboring under many and various hardships, has certainly come to pass in these times of ours. For because you, who have always been the highest philosopher, have been created supreme prince, it is excellently brought about that which that very learned man asserts will happen when either a philosopher begins to reign or a king begins to philosophize. Indeed, now the weapons that were raging throughout Italy and all of Europe are resting completely, and that raging Mars is restrained by the chains of your prudence. All nations, reconciled among themselves, enjoy the most tranquil peace through your work and your counsels, and the clearest gifts of rest—that is, the study of letters, which long wars had snatched away—have begun to flourish most beautifully under your pontificate. For peace, itself established by you like a plant, its flowers and fruits follow in abundance, and all the cities of Italy are now gladdened by the ornaments of literature, which were previously deprived, deformed, and lived as if widowed, clothed in a certain mournful garment. They now stand and increase even more, as gatherings of philosophers, orators, poets, and finally professors of all liberal arts are stirred in a wonderful way by your influence, divine Nicholas, you who have not only made your times thus peaceful, but also magnanimously propose [rewards] for each person’s virtue and labor. For you do not think that useless money should be hoarded, but you distribute it constantly and liberally, and you deem yourself rich if money is of use to you, if through supreme liberality you gain immortal praise for yourself. Nor do you spend gold to prepare armies, so that you might not move the chalice of divine blood to your lips with a bloodied hand. But you restore weary towns, you build temples, you do everything so that every kind of literature might flourish beautifully, and you bestow things that make poverty lighter for the poor in spirit. Finally, you establish everything laudably, so that public happiness might come to all mortals. But nothing is clearer, nothing holier, and finally nothing more beneficial to human life than that care and diligence of yours by which literature flourishes and very many learned and educated men emerge. And by which nothing at all is lacking to the learned, which they ought to obtain in terms of honor or money. In which matter it is truly permitted to render that special praise to you also: that you not only take care that all volumes which the Latin language can provide be collected with the greatest diligence and sought out at great expense, even from the barbarians living beyond the north, but you also attend to the translation of the numerous works of the Greeks into the Latin language. And you do this with such desire that soon, barely a few notable books will remain of the language...