MOST SERENE
COSIMO II DE’MEDICI
FOURTH GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY
A most excellent and kind service has been performed by those who defend from envy the great deeds of excellent men and have taken it upon themselves to preserve from oblivion and ruin names deserving of immortality. Because of this, images sculpted in marble or cast in bronze are passed down for the memory of prosperity; because of this, statues, pedestrian as well as equestrian, are erected; because of this, too, the cost of columns and pyramids, as the poet says, rises to the stars; and because of this, finally, cities are built distinguished by the names of those who grateful posterity thought should be commended to eternity. For such is the condition of the human mind that unless continuously struck by images of things rushing into it from the outside, all memories easily escape from it.
