Francisci Hotomani iurisconsulti observationum liber IIII

For although in such darkness we sometimes grope and even stumble, yet, like all other things, these little books of ours are to be estimated by the greater and better part. Since I was about to bring to light this fourth book of our Observations—a good part of which is consumed in those animadversions—I thought it agreeable to my duty toward you to dedicate it to you (most noble youth and most generous Baron). I did this partly so that some testimony of my opinion regarding your exceptional character might publicly exist, and partly to incite your study toward this discipline of ours. Since you will observe in this booklet what you have very often heard from me in our public and private schools, that the civil law is treated more truly, more purely, and more integrally in the manner and mode of the ancient Iurisconsulti legal experts, rather than in that impure, sordid, and barbaric way which, about one hundred years ago, during the supreme destruction of all good arts, was instituted by those sycophants...