Ancient Latin Agricultural Writers, Vol. I

from the previous page: Gesner continues his critique of scholars who rely on others' research without attribution.
We have observed that [Popma], while he spared his own reputation, frequently used the findings of others as his own while concealing their author. One will find that this is not said rashly if one wishes to inspect and compare the annotations at 1, 23, 3 and 1, 45, 3. It is useful to point out that 2, 2, 12 is owed to Ursino Fulvio Orsini, an Italian humanist and historian. Add 2, 2, 13 and 2, 2, 18, where he compiled two notes of Victorii Petrus Victorius, a 16th-century philologist, the preceding and the following one. Add 2, 3, 8; 2, 4, 10; 2, 4, 11, where he took a passage of Strabo from the note of Scaliger to Tomacina referring to the humanist Girolamo Tomacelli. To the same Scaliger are also owed the notes at 2, 5, 14, 2, 9, 7, and 2, 11, 2; to Ursino, however, those which he inscribed at 2, 9, 9, and likewise at 3, 1, 2; finally, for we must conclude, to Victorius those which are read at 3, 5, 9. A truly ignoble deed, and worthy of the anger of Scaliger, who spoke wonderfully, if he said those things which are attributed to him in the Scaligerana secunda the second volume of Scaliger's table talk; which passage the distinguished Schœttgenius pointed out to us, as he did the other from the Scaligerana prima the first volume of Scaliger's table talk, p. 19, where it is said that Scaliger composed notes on Varro’s De Re Rustica in the twenty-fifth year of his life. But something must still be said about Popma's notes. The copyists corrupted them wonderfully, and they were published in a manner quite unworthy of the Plantiniana officina the famous Plantin Press. There is punctuation in the middle of words, if I may use this example; entire verses are doubled; and other outrages of that kind. We have restored those things that were clear enough, and indeed there were not a few of them. There were also some about which we might have suspicions, but which, confined by time, we could not investigate. Certainly no one who has inspected the previous edition will deny that those notes are now read much more conveniently and correctly. Concerning the manuscripts, we point out one more thing: there is one at Wroclaw in the Rhedinger library, written in the 14th century, lacking lemmata headings and chapter distinctions. We did not dare to bother the most kind Kranzius about it, because we did not expect too much from a codex which had failed us in the description of the aviary, which the excellent old man had submitted, and in a few other doubtful places. The collation made from an ancient codex by THEODORE RYCKIUS brought more help, which Jo. Theod. Schalbruchius, a most deserving professor of the Amsterdam Lyceum, had shared with Schoettgenius at the request of Perizonius.

Translation of the marginal note: Popma has done a poor job on Varro. Oh, the poor judgments, those of Popma! The one who worked on Varro and Sallust gathered filth. (Yet he described Scaliger and other great men!) I mocked him so much at Geneva.