Rasaratnākara (manuscript)

PREFACE. V

For this reason, the critical apparatus of Kulenkampius for Cleomedes—containing readings from eight codices and the editio princeps first printed edition, which the Göttingen library twice entrusted to me for private study with singular generosity—was not of great help, since the learned man refrains from speaking about the age of the codices he used.

And while I was sometimes doubting and considering with myself whether perhaps that burden might have been greater than our strength, the colleague Carolus Manitius did not fail me—which I profess openly with a grateful heart—who, given his learning and sagacity in astronomical matters, stood as a most rigorous examiner of the work undertaken. We have noted in their proper place all the conjectures he most liberally granted to me. Also, the emendations of Hultsch, Kontos, and Letronne and Meineke, which removed inveterate errors, have been accepted into the text.

Balfour's Latin translation, which Bake added to his edition, has been so changed and corrected in so many places that we do not fear to claim it as our own. The index to Pappus, elaborated by Hultsch with marvelous diligence and care, often showed us the way as we were translating, and made this difficult and sometimes ungrateful labor easier and simpler. However, we chose not to consult the Latin translation made by Georgius Valla of Piacenza, with which Marcus Hopperus augmented his edition of Cleomedes in 1561, even though the quite rare book was at hand, because it is faulty and lacks elegance.

So that the individual words and things treated by Cleomedes might be found more easily and his Greek style in some way...