On Agriculture and On Farming

From the apographa transcribed copies, I have presented the writing of the Parisian codex, which I have indicated with the letter A, both for Cato and for Varro, in such a way that nothing that was indeed written by an ancient hand was omitted, and those things which had been changed or added by an old scribe were accurately indicated. Those things which have been corrected or added by a recent hand have no authority, but pertain partly to correcting manifest errors of the original writing, and partly have been received by Italian correctors. Therefore, I have omitted some of these which have no utility; however, I have indicated most of this kind as well, so that the reading of the codex might be established.

From the Medicean codex, I have added a few things in the book of Cato, and more in the books of Varro, which are indicated by the letter m. I have noted, however, those matters primarily in which the Parisian codex, dissenting from the writing of the others, has this one as a match, so that by that consensus it might be proven that the writing of the Parisian codex was repeated from an older source. Furthermore, some things which were correctly amended in the codex seemed worthy of record.

From the more recent codices in the books of Varro, I have used one Laurentian codex, 51, 4, accurately described from the archetype itself, whose testimony was sufficient even in those places where, with the Parisian book dissenting from the excerpts of Politianus—especially when the reading of the editio princeps had not been changed by him—it could be doubted what had been omitted or less accurately indicated by Politianus, and what should be attributed to the error of the Parisian codex. I have also presented its writing in full, to ensure greater certainty about the archetype, and I have indicated it with the letter B. In the book of Cato, there was no transcript prepared to which similar trust should be granted, but I found the books corrupted by very many faults of scribes, and partly also by the corrections of the Italians. Therefore, in this, I have used three codices: two Laurentians, 51, 1 and 2, and one Cesenate. Since their readings, which agree among themselves, are the only ones to be retrieved from an ancient source, I have used the common sign of the letter R to indicate them. I have mostly omitted those things which are specific to a single codex, since they were introduced by the error or license of the scribes. Where the readings of the three books could not be encompassed by one sign, but it had to be indicated what was written in individual books, I added notes: f for Laurentian 51, 1; b for Laurentian 51, 2; and c for the Cesenate. But of these, I had the Florentine codex f collated less accurately in the category that pertains to the manner of writing rather than...