Writers on Agriculture, Volume I

Bibliotheca Guelferbytana Wolfenbüttel Library, which, although I inspected it not unprofitably in other places of the Geoponica agricultural works, helped me little in amending Palladius.

Finally, I will note that in the Vatican Codex signed number 1286, as noted by the author Polenus in his second Vitruvian Exercise original: "Exercitatio altera Vitruviana" on page 173, there exists at the beginning The Agricultural Work of Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus original: "Palladii Rutilii Tauri Aemiliani Opus Agriculturae", at the end of which, on page 43 of the Codex, the following is read: The Agricultural Work of the Illustrious Man, Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus, is finished. Here begins the Architecture, a very useful science. original: "Palladii Rutilii Tauri Aemiliani, Viri Illustris. Opus Agriculturae explicit. Incipit de Architectura, valde utili Scientia." Next followed a Compendium of Vitruvian Architecture original: "Compendium Architecturae Vitruvianae" edited by Vascosanus in Paris, 1540. From this, someone might have conjectured that there were once those who thought Palladius was the author of that Compendium. Furthermore, as the same Polenus notes, in the very ancient Vatican codex signed number 104, which contains Vitruvius written with the same Compendium, it is inscribed on the spine, although by a more recent hand: Vitruvius and Palladius. original: "Vitruvius et Palladius." Truly, the excellent Polenus observed that the author of the Compendium translated many things from Isidorus, who lived toward the end of the seventh century, others from Palladius himself, and a few from Vitruvius. It is better, therefore, to hold Peter the Deacon original: "Petrus Diaconus" as the author of the Compendium, to whom the writers of the Cassinese Chronicles attribute the abbreviated Vitruvius, although the author's name was found in none of the codices compared by Polenus. I was forced to doubt the authority of the discipline derived from Palladius by Chapter 30, where various formulas for mortar malthae a type of water-resistant cement or mortar are given, a part of which exists in Palladius, book 1, chapter 41, while the rest are translated from some writer whom we do not know today. There are also other places in the Compendium that Polenus incorrectly judged to have been translated from Palladius.