Although, most illustrious Albergaria, you might humanely have demanded of us that the second part of the Commentaries on Genesis by Benedict Pererius of the Society of Jesus be published by the press at Lyon — yet it was not as easy for you to command it as for us to dispose our minds to discharge the task. The thing is done; but that it may come to light, it has need of the light of your praise. For it is fitting that from him by whom this our labor took its auspice, from that same it should claim its patronage. And what shadows of envy or of malevolence will the amplitude and splendor of your name not scatter? This is the first occasion of the dedication that presents itself to my mind. We know how great — set apart though you are by a long tract of lands and ocean — how great is the renown of your lineage, which, drawn from the foremost nobility of Lusitania and the rest of Spain, by the etymology of the Spanish-derived surname ‘Albergaria’ [a lodging, shelter], proclaims you a receptacle and protection of men. Much less can your wisdom, and your singular benevolence toward learned men and toward those zealous for letters even by rude effort, lie hidden. Wherefore we may rightly call you a receptacle not only of men (as your family surname indicates), but most of all of the liberal arts. Why ‘receptacle’? Nay — let envy be far from the praise — a ‘spectacle.’ In you alone, a man of manifold erudition, a most wise cultivator of human and divine letters, you set forth noble arts worthy to be beheld.²

To you, indeed, the lovers of the good arts look; after the spectacle, they marvel at the theater of your distinguished Library. The most honorable judgments of the most learned men extol you; constant fame everywhere sings of you. To no one, therefore, ought it to seem strange if you take care to bring light to mortals eager to see, and to exhibit spectacles after the ancient example of the Caesars. Go on and prosper in your industry, most illustrious Lupus, to whom Genesis — that is, ‘generation’ — is rightly owed in the open, the covering of obscurity cast off: for you labor that the monuments of literature, buried in darkness, be restored to life by the benefit of Typography. Nay rather, it would escape [reason] by an unfitting account, that Pererius — from that family which you uniquely love, which has filled the globe with the fame of its name — should flow out, a stream beyond its banks in fullest flood from its channel; and just as the Arar [Saône] receives increase from the Rhône at Lyon, so Pererius, [printed] at Lyon by the Giunta press and, under your auspices, joined to the Rhône or to Gaul, will be beheld with the glory of his erudition growing day by day. But you, most learned Albergaria, neither spurn this pledge of love, nor wish to be disjoined from the Giuntas with an alienated mind. The one of these the author's dignity will obtain; the other we promise ourselves from your humanity. Farewell.³