On Agriculture and On Farming

We know, on the authority of Angelo Poliziano and Pietro Vettori, that the most ancient codex of Cato's and Varro's books on farming was once in the Florentine Library of Saint Mark. In the year 1482, Poliziano compared that book with the first edition of the writers on farming—Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius—which had been produced in Venice in 1472 by Nicolaus Jenson. He noted every discrepancy in the script within the printed copy. Later, using the same codex, Vettori edited these books of Cato and Varro in 1541 in Lyon at the house of Sebastian Gryphius. In the explanations published there the following year, he often mentioned the Marcian codex and noted its readings. Before these explanations, in the place of a preface, he wrote the following regarding the manuscripts he used. Because I see that no more accurate account of the ancient codex has been left behind, I have taken care to repeat it here.

Pietro Vettori's Explanations of his Corrections to Cato, Varro, and Columella.

Because I undertook this labor not for the sake of showing off my wit or learning, but to aid the best author and those who study him, I desire above all that my reliability be tested. For if I am able to attain the praise of modest diligence, I will not seem to have involved myself in such a troublesome task in vain. I will explain, therefore, what aids I used and how I conducted myself in this matter. The aids were the ancient books, without which I would not only have been unable to approach this work, but would likely never have taken these writers on rural matters into my hands to read them more accurately. For I believe that all the efforts of all men are either fruitless or achieve very little without the help of those books. There is a very ancient volume in the Library of Saint Mark, in which there is one book of M. Cato, which he wrote On Agriculture, and three of M. Terentius Varro, likewise on rural matters. That one book, if I may speak the truth and adorn it with deserved praise, provided me with greater utility than all the others combined, for it surpasses those I have had by a long interval in both age and accuracy.