"Wise Aldo," she said to him after having had placed on his table a bag containing 2,000 gold coins and a weighty manuscript, "you will be in the eyes of the most remote posterity, the most erudite and skilful printer of all time and the author of this book that I am entrusting you with will leave behind the renown of the greatest painter and the greatest poet of this century now drawing to a close. You are the sole repository of this treasure, which I will ask you to give me back once your art has reproduced it. I have not wanted to deprive of its presence completely those minds favoured by heaven who know how to view the concepts of genius, but I have waited, to multiply the copies of it, the moment I could turn to a great printer. You know now, wise Aldo, what I expect of you: a masterpiece worthy of your name and capable just by itself of perpetuating your memory through ages to come. When this gold has been used up, I will bring more." Afterwards Polia got up and leaned with both hands on the women who had come with her. Aldo followed her to her gondola, showing his agreement with her by respectful gestures, but without talking to her, because he was not ignorant of the fact that, having lived in total solitude for more than thirty years, she had eschewed both the business and the conversation of men.
The book we must consider here is entitled the 'Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, sive pugna d'amore in sogno', that is to say 'Love's combat in a dream' and not 'The Combat of Love and Sleep' as Mister Ginguené, author of 'The Literary History of Italy', has in error translated it. We do not pretend, heaven forbid, that Mr Ginguené, author of 'The Literary History of Italy', did not know Italian. We are more indulgent towards talent's lapses.
"Sign that as you will," said Lowrich getting up. "I am not in the habit of putting my name to such trifles, and, as God is my witness, I have never granted such lightweight stories to sellers of books for any other purpose than to get books."
"May all the stories that you have before you," said Apostolo, "go to enrich your library with a volume like this one! It is yours and I owe it to you twice over."
"It is mine," said Lowrich, taking hold of it enthusiastically. "Or rather it belongs to you," he went on gaily, passing it from his hands to mine. "I promised it to you this morning!"
And so it is that the most magnificent copy of the Poliphilus, the giant of my Lilliputian collection, figures in it today nec pluribus impar. I submit it voluntarily to the gazes of book lovers, who cannot stop themselves from seeing in it a magnificent book… and one I did not pay the earth for!