PREFACE

Pontedera, in amending Palladius, utilized, besides the Vatican books, the Hortus of P. Cuba—who copied Palladius—and an Italian manuscript translation of Palladius from the Salvinian library in Florence, as well as the Basel edition of Petrus de Crescentiis from 1538, and two Italian versions: one published in Venice in 1536, and another in Florence in 1605. The author of the latter was Bastiani de’ Rossi, nicknamed "lo Nferigno," who affirms that he compared manuscript codices. The Catalog of the Library of the Duke de la Vallière (I, page 451) contains the version made by Nicholaus (Laurentius Alemannus) and published in 1478 in folio format. The Catalog of the Capponi Library (Rome, 1747, page 137) praises another published in Venice in 1519 in quarto format, and a third in the same place in 1564 in folio format, with Franc. Sansovino as author. I. A. Fabricius, in Latin Library of the Middle Ages original: "Biblioth. latina medii aevi", attributed an ancient French version, which Cangius often used in his Latin Glossary, to the year 1370, using the testimony of a French writer. Maittaire, in Typographical Annals original: "Annal. typ." (I, page 198), published the year of the edition as 1486, the place as Paris, and the format as folio. Schwarzius described the first German version of 1493 in the Index of his books (page 46). I searched in vain for the old French version in the Göttingen treasury. However, through the kindness of Heynius, I was supplied with the editio princeps of Petrus de Crescentiis from 1471, with which I found my own ancient copy, lacking any note of year or place, to be in complete agreement everywhere; which I had previously already compared with Cato and Varro.