The Printer to the Reader.

Large decorative ornamental drop cap "V" featuring floral motifs and architectural scrollwork. I have seen fit to attach variant readings in the margin to each text, which the diligence of the Author, toiling for your benefit, had collected, so that I too might contribute something to your advantage. In order that you may use these more rightly, I have thought it necessary to note that Ocellus was published by Ludovico Nogarola from the Venetian presses in the year 1559; although he believed he was publishing the first version of it, Ocellus had previously appeared only in Latin, with Guillaume Chrétien as translator, at Lyon in 1541. Commelinus printed it again in the year 1596, adding at the end certain various readings drawn from a Louvain manuscript, and others whose names he did not enumerate. Paulus Bolduanus, in his Bibliotheca philosophica, advises that it was likewise printed at Heidelberg in the year 1595; I know not whether he was following Commelinus's text. The author saw the texts of Nogarola and Commelinus, and moreover two manuscripts of the Vatican Library: one older, the other bequeathed by the will of the distinguished Luigi Lollino, Bishop, to the most holy Pope Urban VIII, and donated to the same library by the singular munificence of so great a Prince; and furthermore another manuscript from the collection of the distinguished Thomas Bartholin the Dane, which that most learned man very kindly shared with the Author. Having collated these, he emended the text, and thereafter, having added or removed articles where it was appropriate, he further selected variant readings. So that you might know from which manuscript they were excerpted, I have added these marks:

V. denotes the older manuscript of the Vatican Library.
v. the Lollino manuscript.
VV. both manuscripts of the Vatican Library.
B. the manuscript of Bartholin.
C. the text of Commelinus.
N. the text of Nogarola; since the author’s use of this was more frequent, if he thought it necessary to depart from it at any point, I have added, for example, in. ex VV. & B., signifying the changed reading according to the Vatican and Bartholin manuscripts.
L. represents the Louvain manuscript, and al. other manuscripts which Commelinus had seen.

This, Reader, I wished you to know. Farewell.