DEDICATORY LETTER
of the personages introduced in the discussion were already dead; for besides those mentioned in the proem of the last Book, messer Alfonso Ariosto8 (to whom the work is dedicated) is also dead, a gracious youth, considerate, of the highest breeding, and apt in everything proper to a man who lives at court. Likewise Duke Giuliano de' Medici,9 whose kindness and noble courtesy deserved to be enjoyed longer by the world. Messer Bernardo,10 Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico, who for his keen and playful readiness of wit was most delightful to all that knew him, he, too, is dead. Dead also is my lord Ottaviano Fregoso,11 a man very rare in our times: magnanimous, devout, full of kindness, talent, good sense, and courtesy, a true lover of honour and merit, and so worthy of praise that his very enemies were ever forced to praise him; and the misadventures that he bore so bravely were enough to prove that fortune is still, as always, adverse to merit. And of those mentioned in my book many more besides are dead, to whom nature seemed to promise very long life.
But what should not be told without tears is that my lady Duchess,12 too, is dead. And if my heart mourns the loss of so many friends and patrons, who have left me in this life as in a solitude full of sorrows, it is meet that I grieve more bitterly for the death of my lady Duchess than of all the others; for she was more precious than they, and I more bound to her than to all the others. Not to delay, then, the tribute that I owe the memory of so excellent a Lady and of the others who are no more, and moved also by the danger to my book, I have had it printed and published in such state as the shortness of time permitted.
And since you had no knowledge in their lifetime either of my lady Duchess or of the others who are dead (except Duke Giuliano and the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico), in order to give you that knowledge after their death as far as I can, I send you this book as a picture of the Court of Urbino, not by the hand of Raphael98 or Michelangelo,99 but of a humble painter, who knows only how to trace the chief lines, and cannot adorn truth with bright colouring, or by perspective art make that which is not seem to be. And although I tried to show forth in their discourse the qualities and character of my personages, I own I failed to express or even to suggest the excellences of my lady Duchess,
