Ego vero, Caesar, neque alienis indicibus mutatis interposito nomine meo id profero corpus neque ullius cogitata vituperans institui ex eo me adprobare, sed omnibus scriptoribus infinitas ago gratias, quod egregiis ingeniorum sollertiis ex aevo conlatis abundantes alius alio genere copias praeparaverunt, unde nos uti fontibus haurientes aquam et ad propria proposita traducentes facundiores et expeditiores habemus ad scribendum facultates talibusque confidentes auctoribus audemus institutiones novas comparare.
But this encyclopaedia, your Highness, is not presented under my own name with the suppression of my authorities, nor have I set out to gain approbation by vituperating any mans ideas. For I owe great gratitude to all those who with an ocean of intellectual services which they gathered from all time, each in his department provided stores from which we, like those who draw water from a spring and use it for their own purposes, have gained the means of writing with more eloquence and readiness; and trusting in such authorities we venture to put together a new manual of architecture.
final_alignments\Vitruvius_Architecture_Book_7.json