Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Vol. II

PRAEFATIO Preface

D PARISINVS bibliothec. nation. graec. 1838 [MEDICEVS REG. 2093] (cf. H. Omont, Inventaire II p. 151) of the largest format, 33.1 x 22.6 cm, 686 pages, written in the 16th century by Ioannes de Otranto; Omont provided a specimen, Fac-Similés de manuscrits grecs des XV^e et XVI^e siècles, plate 28; cf. p. 12. It contains all the books (p. 1–684). From p. 685f I edited in the Rhenish Museum vol. 54 (1899) p. 196 the beginning of the Melissa a collection of moral excerpts by Proclus on Plato's Republic 1) cf. Procl. in rempubl. ed. Kroll II p. 1 ff, p. 473. This codex abounds with errors, lacunae, and blank spaces, especially at the beginning of the fifth book and toward the end. Frequently, the scribe ineptly disturbed the order of the leaves and quaternions of the exemplar.

I took many specimens. However, I will call upon Q for help after the defect of codices CMPN, i.e., from p. 228 A "harmonious was composed," so that it may not lack support—since it is not far distant from Q—but in such a way that we leave out the open mistakes to be attributed to the negligence of the scribe entirely, so that the image of the tradition is not obscured.

A twin is the Paris bibliothec. nation. graec. 1841. They are very similar, although they were subject to far fewer errors and were not deformed by reckless conjectures, like the Chisian and the Escurial: both preserved the fragment of Melissa—certainly better. For this reason, I am deeply sorry that I could not use either codex in its entirety to restore the text: but I am persuaded that neither the Chisian nor the Escurial is of as much value as Q, which I have fully exhausted. I will discuss this book more fully in the preface of the second volume.
I consulted them in Paris in 1898, and collated them in part in Munich in 1901.

I will cite the codices of the common recension (ς) in the second chapter, in addition to the two on which previous editions rely: