On Agriculture and On Farming

Furthermore, so that it might be understood to which words or to which letters the change of reading noted by him from the codex pertained, wherever his readings were indicated, it was also necessary to indicate what was read in the editio princeps first printed edition. For it often happened that, if anything in the reading of the editio princeps had to be changed from the codex, Politianus did not accurately indicate those things which he wanted to be changed or deleted, but corrected some things according to the authority of the codex, while leaving others as they were held in the published copy, where the error could be recognized from the apographa transcribed copies. Therefore, so that a judgment could be made regarding the reliability of Politianus in those things which he noted, I have added the readings of the editio princeps, where they had been changed by him, marked with the letter v. Yet it should not seem necessary to record all the defects of the editio princeps, which had been corrected by Politianus from the codex, and to note the entire discrepancy of the edition, in which very many things were changed by the editor’s own judgment without any authority from books. Therefore, where the editor’s manifest interpolations had been corrected by Politianus from the codex, and no discrepancy of writing was found in the manuscripts which we now use, it was useless to add the corrupt readings of the printed copy along with his corrections. But wherever it pertained to confirming the authority of an accepted reading—which it is certain by the testimony of Politianus was written thus in the archetype—I have repeated the writing of the codex indicated by him, adding the reading of the Venetian edition in the annotation. In those matters, however, which Politianus had not changed in the editio princeps, not even the most minor details could be omitted, in which he had undoubtedly not indicated the different writing of the codex, especially those things which pertain to the spelling of words, for the reason that in this category he sometimes noted the writing of the codex, and sometimes passed over it as useless. To the excerpts of Politianus, I have added those things which were noted by Victorius in his explanations from the same codex. In doing so, I have repeated the very words of Victorius in their proper places, although in the book of Cato I have more often used a shorter method. In the edition of Victorius, those things which are not read in the copies printed before him have some authority for confirming the writing of the codex. For in these he mostly followed the codex, to which he attributed the most, and changed the common reading. Wherefore, especially when for some reason one could doubt the reliability of Politianus, I have indicated the readings of Victorius that are different from previous editions and, as it seems, first received by him from the codex.