Eight Books of Dioscorides in Greek and Latin

The Printer to the readers.

A decorative woodcut initial 'C' features a bird (possibly a pelican or eagle) amidst foliage.

When, by the kindness of the Great and Good God, I had attained a point where these typefaces that I cut were approved by many, it became my aim to transcribe every best book into as many copies as possible using this method of printing. Therefore, I thought I should make the beginning of this undertaking with sacred texts. When I had paid these as first-fruits to God, I began to print other authors of this language, especially the good ones. For this task, I have used the work and judgment of other learned men who are our friends, and especially of the physician Jacques Goupyl. He gave us advice that we should print the books of Dioscorides in such a way that they would be compressed into a certain narrow space. He most kindly promised that he would take the greatest possible care to ensure that this author would come into the hands of men, corrected on the authority of many ancient manuscripts. In order to achieve this, he compared copies printed by others with many old handwritten books, and marked all the places that were incorrectly described or missing with an asterisk, so that he might restore them later. (For that method of correcting books seemed better to him than to excise what had already been received.) You will see with what great faith and diligence this was performed by him in the corrections he wrote for this author. Therefore, enjoy these labors of ours in the meantime, while we prepare for you an illustrated image of the plants which are the subject of this author.