On the Latin Language

...he treated parts of the Florentine book (cf. Philol. vol. XIII, p. 690, note). But the diligence of Henricus Keil far surpassed those before him; he gave what he had noted with customary care to Leonardus Spengel as a gift for the Mueller edition, whence he first taught truer things in his commentary of 1854, and then others, until his son Andreas published a new and corrected recension by every means in 1885 from his drafts. Meanwhile, at the suggestion of Studemund, Adolfus Groth, while he was in Florence in 1877, collated the book more accurately with the earlier Spengelian one, and three years later published what he had transcribed in the Strasbourg Dissertations IV, p. 81 ff. Since A. Spengel had combined the often-conflicting testimonies of Keil and Groth, we approached Augustus Wilmanns first, so that we might distinguish more certainly, as he himself had once examined the codex, because after his excellent treatment of grammatical fragments he had intended to provide a recension of the books on the Latin language: would that he had carried out that plan! This most kind man, always benevolent toward us, could not provide us with a copy of his materials for a suitable reason. Therefore, in 1906, Schoell decided to re-read the book; though he had intended from the beginning to consider only those discrepancies, he soon understood that the full context had to be examined: whence he realized that Keil often, and sometimes even Groth, had seen the truth; yet sometimes he departed from both, not only in the method of noting discrepancies, corrections, and distinctions, but also in the readings themselves.1 Where we departed from the testimonies of others or wished to resolve a doubt that had arisen more certainly, we often added "sic" thus to the writings exhibited in the apparatus, or confirmed in another way the writing given by us. Regarding the fact that L. Spengel says, both in his commentary of 1854 and in his preface 2nd ed., p. V with Keil, that "individual folios consist of 40 lines," that this is not entirely true is evident from those things we noted on p. 125, 9 ff. and 146, 5 and 179, 3 (cf. also p. 91 s. f. and ad 133, 7 ff.: where at the same time we gave warning about the distributed labor of writing and the stages of the script, which we do not wish to repeat in this place). It would certainly be most gratifying if what happened and is happening to so many codices in these times should also happen to this treasure, namely that the whole thing were depicted by the phototypic art. Meanwhile, we delegate to the image of one page proposed by Aemilius Chatelain in his most useful work (p. 173, 4—175, 28 from our edition) and, to represent more clearly the plan of the book—certainly not the letters!—we present in type the first page of the context as transcribed by Schoell.

1) 122, 3 where an error was committed and noted both in the note and in the Corrigenda, our friend Hieronymus Vitelli kindly examined the passage again as he is wont to do, and also replied regarding another matter we inquired about.