Apo kōpēs eis to bēma

...I strive for brevity. Meanwhile, because a very wide field of your praises carries me away, I recall myself and return to you, Magnificent Lord JOHANN, Commissioner, who, if you had absolutely nothing else but the name of your father, Lord FRIEDRICH, a great man, would nevertheless have to be assigned a most noble place among the most distinguished. For he, noble by birth, became far nobler by virtue and erudition, and advanced so far that, when he was about to deliver a speech to the most Serene Prince of Venice and his Senate, he offered himself and succeeded in speaking in whichever language the Prince pleased, be it German, Latin, or Italian. Since his virtue, erudition, and eminence had long been known to our Rhaetians, they called him and wished to have him as an ornament of the Fatherland; and therefore, with the approval of gods and men, they designated him Commissioner of the County of Chiavenna. He had as a father, your grandfather, Lord RODOLPHUS, a man distinguished in military matters and in the administration of the Republic, whom I remember all the more willingly because he left behind as his successor, not so much in name as in virtues, your cousin Lord RODOLPHUS, son of Caspar, a youth most practiced in the Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and German languages, of whom a sure hope shines upon me that he will be a great citizen of our Republic. If now time and the opportunity of the place allowed me to add something about your other Salicei—Lord DIETEGANO, governor of jurisdictions and vigorous Knight; Lord Hercules, Rodolphus, Augustinus, Antonio, Horatio, and countless others who have administered the most desired supreme government of the Republic in our fatherland, have performed excellent embassies to various princes and republics, and have prepared immortal glory and praise for themselves by great deeds nobly done in war and peace—I would have touched upon the whole illustrious Salicei family even if only in passing. But I see that I must refrain from this narration now, if only for the reason that, because the Salicei mother happened to be my relative, someone might hatefully object that I am praising that family as most ornate and most ample for that reason. But however things may be, I truly affirm this: if, in time, it should happen that I engage in a genre of writing requiring panegyric, through the powers of my wit, I would choose to pursue and study the magnificently performed deeds and clearly generous virtues of your family, as much for the dignity of the subject as for the august fame of the name, above many others. For all those things are so significant and almost royal that one who praises you and yours cannot be judged a flatterer, but one who does not praise them can, not unjustly, be judged malevolent. Finally, descending to where I intended, I ask that you receive these Theses, dedicated to your Illustrious and Magnificent name, O MOST EXCELLENT HEROES, in the same spirit with which I wrote them, and that you embrace not so much the gift—which, if you look at the thing itself, is small—as the intent, by reason of which it is very great, according to your kindness and vigorous magnificence. I pray to God the All-Good and All-Great that you and yours may be most happy and august in the favorable success of affairs. From our Basel Museum, the first day of April, 1582.