On Agriculture

he could have sought from the Medicean codex or from the Florentine one, which had been corrected from it. I indicated these with the added letter v and, if the same things are read in the Medicean codex, I also added the letter m. The emendations of the remaining editors I indicated with their names added. Among these, Philippus Beroaldus, who expressed the editio princeps at Bologna in the year 1494, corrected its readings in one or two places. Iucundus Veronensis, who by far surpassed the other editors in learning and talent, emended more than any of the others. For to his zeal is owed the new edition of these writers, which was done at Venice at the press of Aldus in the year 1514. In that edition, however, not only were manuscript books used, among which was the Medicean codex, but also, through the conjecture of the editor, very many things that were reported as corrupted in the older copies were changed. Although the greatest part of these lacks the support of manuscript books, yet all were ingeniously discovered, and many were restored fittingly and probably. The Aldine edition was followed a year later by the Juntine, done at Florence in 1515 by Nicolaus Angelius, in which that [Aldine edition] was almost entirely expressed, but some things were changed partly from Florentine codices and partly by conjecture. In the next editions, beyond a few things which were corrected in the Basel edition of 1521, I found nothing worthy of memory. Then, Petrus Victorius, having obtained the Marcian codex, published the books of Cato and Varro and likewise of the other writers on rural matters in the year 1541, having restored the genuine text of the ancient codex and thereby deserving best of all concerning the books of Cato and Varro. But the same man retained too many things which had been propagated from the interpolated copies of previous editors to the Juntine edition, which he used as a foundation for his new edition; he corrected by his own conjecture only a few things which he had found corrupted in the codex. The edition of Victorius was followed by all who published the same books afterwards. For from this was expressed the Commelinian edition of 1595, the care of which had been entrusted to Fridericus Sylburgius. Gesnerus repeated the Commelinian edition, when, having undertaken the work in 1735 which Schoettgenus had once begun, he