softe:  and in those that thei did in the Sunne, not in the shadowe:  and to take the true and perfecte maners of the antiquitie:  not those that are false and corrupted:  for that when these studies pleased my Romaines, my countrie fell into ruin.  Unto which Cosimo answered.  But to avoide the tediousnesse to repeate so many times he saied, and the other answered, there shall be onely noted the names of those that speakes, without rehersing other.

Then COSIMO saied, you have opened the waie of a reasoning, which I have desired, and I praie you that you will speake withoute respecte, for that that I without respecte will aske you, and if I demaundyng, or repliyng shall excuse, or accuse any, it shal not be to excuse, or accuse, but to understande of you the truth.

FABRICIO.  And I shall be very well contented to tell you that, whiche I understand of al the same that you shall aske me, the whiche if it shall be true, or no, I wil report me to your judgemente:  and I will be glad that you aske me, for that I am to learne, as well of you in askyng me, as you of me in aunswerynge you:  for as muche as many times a wise demaunder, maketh one to consider many thynges, and to knowe many other, whiche without havyng been demaunded, he should never have knowen.

COSIMO.  I will retourne to thesame, that you said first, that my graundfather and those your Princes, should have doen more wisely, to have resembled the antiquitie in hard thinges, then in the delicate, and I will excuse my parte, for that, the other I shall leave to excuse for you.  I doe not beleve that in his tyme was any manne, that so moche detested the livyng in ease, as he did, and that so moche was a lover of the same hardenesse of life, whiche you praise:  notwithstandyng he knewe not how to bee able in persone, nor in those of his sonnes to use it, beeyng borne in so corrupte a worlde, where one that would digresse from the common use, should bee infamed and disdained of every man:  consideryng that if one in the hottest day of Summer being naked, should wallowe hymself upon the Sande, or in Winter in the moste coldest monethes upon the snowe, as Diogenes did, he should be taken as a foole.  If one, (as the Spartans were wonte to doe) should nourishe his children in a village, makyng them to slepe in the open aire, to go with hedde and feete naked, to washe them selves in the colde water for to harden them, to be able to abide moche paine, and for to make theim to love lesse life, and to feare lesse death, he should be scorned, and soner taken as a wilde beast, then as a manne.  If there wer seen also one, to nourishe himself with peason and beanes, and to despise gold, as Fabricio doeth, he should bee praised of fewe, and followed of none:  so that he being afraied of this present maner of livyng, he left thauncient facions, and thesame, that he could with lest admiracion imitate in the antiquitie, he did.