Geoponica: De re rustica libri XX

...ries Completing the word "commentaries" from the previous page. he testifies. This Edition I have personally compared with five complete handwritten Codices Handwritten books, rather than printed ones; the primary sources for scholars in the 18th century. and two incomplete ones. From these, one manuscript and a printed book previously compared by Isaac Casaubon A renowned 16th-century classical scholar famous for his meticulous editing of ancient texts. with a certain manuscript of his own, were most willingly provided from his very well-furnished Library by that distinguished Patron of letters and of learned men, the most noble Prelate, John Moore, Bishop of Norwich. To him, my greatest patron who is to be most highly honored, I return these deserved and everlasting thanks with all due submission of mind; for he was the one who first encouraged me to undertake this work and who vigorously promoted it once begun.

Also, three manuscript Codices—two indeed complete, but the third incomplete though older—and a printed book compared with the manuscript of Mr. Saracenus, Prefect of the Royal Treasury in Narbonne, France original: "Regiæ Pecuniæ Rationum Præfecti in Gallia Narbonensi." An official in charge of royal finances in the southern region of France., and marked in the margin, were lent to me from the famous Cottonian Library One of the most important collections of manuscripts in England, founded by Sir Robert Cotton. by the late original: "ὁ Μακαρίτης," a Greek term of respect for the deceased. Sir John Cotton Bruce, Baronet, a man never to be named by me without a great preface of honor.

Of these Codices, one is of a longer format (which they call Folio, and is noted in the Collations as F.), written, as it seems, three centuries ago. Another is square-shaped, formerly the book of Isaac Vossius, described by a more recent hand, yet in its reliability not unequal to many of Vossius’s Codices; I have no doubt that learned men are fully aware of the true quality and greatness of that collection. The third is very ancient, written at least four hundred years ago.

An equal number of manuscript Codices was supplied to me by the most noble and famous Public Library at Oxford Now known as the Bodleian Library., one of which is kept among the Baroccian books A major collection of Greek manuscripts acquired by the Bodleian in 1629 from the Venetian humanist Giacomo Barocci., Number 54. In the published Geoponica...