debt which
I, above all, owe them, seeing that I was taught by them, that I was
their subject and their devoted servant, that I was brought up under
Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, and under Alessandro, your predecessor,
and that, finally, I am infinitely attached to the blessed memory of the
Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, by whom I was supported, loved and
protected while he lived; for all these reasons, I say, and because from
the greatness of your worth and of your fortunes there will come much
favour for this work, and from your understanding of its subject there
will come a better appreciation than from any other for its usefulness
and for the labour and the diligence that I have given to its execution,
it has seemed to me that to your Excellency alone could it be fittingly
dedicated, and it is under your most honoured name that I have wished it
to come to the hands of men.

Deign, then, Excellency, to accept it, to favour it, and, if this may be
granted to it by your exalted thoughts, sometimes to read it; having
regard to the nature of the matter therein dealt with and to my pure
intention, which has been, not to gain for myself praise as a writer,
but as craftsman to praise the industry and to revive the memory of
those who, having given life and adornment to these professions, do not
deserve to have their names and their works wholly left, even as they
were, the prey of death and of oblivion. Besides, at the same time,
through the example of so many able men and through so many observations
on so many works that I have gathered together in this book, I have
thought to help not a little the masters of these exercises and to
please all those who therein have taste and pleasure. This I have
striven to do with that accuracy and with that good faith which are
essential for the truth of history and of things written. But if my
writing, being unpolished and as artless as my speech, be unworthy of
your Excellency's ear and of the merits of so many most illustrious
intellects; as for them, pardon me that the pen of a draughtsman, such
as they too were, has no greater power to give them outline and shadow;
and as for yourself, let it suffice me that your Excellency should deign
to approve my simple labour, remembering that the necessity of gaining
for myself the wherewithal to live has left me no time to exercise
myself with any instrument but the brush. Nor even with that have I
reached that goal to which I think to be