A rectangular decorative headpiece at the top of the page featuring repeating woodcut floral and scrollwork motifs.

TO THE MOST DISTINGUISHED AND MOST AMPLIFIED MAN

WILLIAM DAFIS

KNIGHT, OF THE SENATE OF BORDEAUX,

A large historiated woodcut initial 'C' depicting a scholar in robes seated at a desk, gesturing toward a figure or object, set within an architectural frame.

I wished to send to you (MOST AMPLIFIED PRESIDENT), for many reasons, Cleomedes' Meteors original: "Meteora", in which the heavens and the stars are discussed, having long ago been purged of errors through my own labor, translated into Latin, and illustrated with a continuous commentary. For, to pass over your constant kindness toward me, and countless other things by which you have long made me beholden to you, the very title of the Meteora things high and celestial, that is, of high and celestial things, and the argument of the divine work itself, clearly led me to you. For to whom do those high and sublime things fit more than to a man who, by his own virtue, has been raised to a truly high and sublime degree of dignity? To whom is the explanation of the stars more rightly offered than to the bright and beneficial star of his own fatherland? Or to whom is the description of the heavens more justly owed than to that heavenly member of the choir of senators?