On Agriculture and On Farming

from the books of Buturlinus sold publicly in Paris in 1839, the index of which Weigelius exhibited in the Serapeum edited by Naumann (vol. I, p. 220) and in which he placed this very edition, it was brought into the Parisian library, where I described Politian’s excerpts in 1851.

I have assembled here the things handed down to memory by Politian and Victorius regarding the old Marcian codex, because I discovered that all those that now survive were described from this one alone. This became apparent to me when, having compared the things which had been edited by Gesnerus from Politian’s excerpts—though not accurately enough—with the readings of the codices we use now, it was more fully confirmed when Politian’s book itself was found. Wherefore, if Politian had used the diligence in examining the archetype that we now desire in a book of this kind, we could easily do without the remaining books. But since those things which were noted by him, although he used great diligence (rare for that age), are not sufficient to represent the entire writing of the archetypal codex, as I understood after comparing the apographs, these too had to be utilized. The greatest part of these was written in Italy in the fifteenth century. Two codices, however, survive that are older than this age: Parisinus 6884 A and Laurentianus 30, 10.

The codex Parisinus 6884 A is written on parchment of square shape in sixty-four numbers, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, as it appeared to me, or even towards the end of the twelfth century, as other judges experienced in these matters have opined. Regarding the origin of the codex, Carolus Benedictus Hasius once asserted to me that it was a book among those that had been purchased by Catherine, Queen of France, of the Medici family, and transferred to the royal library after her death in 1589. The scribe used an accurate, but somewhat uneven script. For in some pages the number of lines is smaller, in others larger, from thirty-eight lines up to forty-six. Because of this, it is read with more difficulty in some places due to the often small shape of the letters, especially where the parchment is darkened. The distinction between words is very uncertain and often omitted. There are quite a few abbreviations, but none among them that should rightfully be referred to an age later than the beginning of the thirteenth century. For ae, e is used consistently; for et and sed, likewise, 7 and s7 are written almost consistently. On the first page, by the same hand that wrote the codex itself, these things were written in red: "In this codex, written below,"