Cicero. Epistolae Familiares. Milan: Lavagna, 1472.
Epistolarum Familiarium M. Tull. Cic. multa uolumina in diuersis Italiae locis hac noua impressorum arte transcripta sunt, que si ut plurima numero ita etiam studio satis correcta essent nouo hoc labore non fuisset opus. Sed tanto errorum numero confunduntur ut non modo littere pro litteris et pro uerbis uerba perturbatissime inuoluta, uerum etiam epistole in epistolas, libri in libros, sic inueniantur confusi, ne tam doctorum diligentia ad communem utilitatem confecta quam auarissimorum hominum cupiditate lucri gratia festinando conuoluta contorta contaminataque manifeste uideantur. Que cum audirem ex uiris cum doctissimis tum etiam prudentissimis ego Philippus Lauagna, ciuis Mediolanensis, ut pro uirili mea aliqua ex parte meis ciuibus prodessem, nactus exemplar correctissimum, studio diligentissimo hominum doctrina prestantium, trecenta uolumina exscribenda curaui, opera adhibita ut singule pagine antea quam imprimerentur ab aliquo doctorum perlecte essent et castigate: quem ego laborem nisi profudisse uidebor pleraque in futurum accuratissime ut transcribantur laborabo non minori publice quam mee utilitatis ratione seruata.
Barbara cum Marci uerbis admixta legebas:
Hunc lege quod verum est hoc Ciceronis opus.
Virgo decus coeli Christi sanctissime mater
Laus tibi cum nato sit sine fine tuo.
M.cccc.lxxii. viii kal. Apriles.
Of the Familiar Letters of M. Tullius Cicero many volumes have been copied in different places of Italy by this new art of the printers, and if these, as they are many in number, were also zealously and sufficiently corrected, there had been no need for this new work. But they are confused by so many errors that not only are letters and words substituted for one another in a most disorderly tangle, but also whole epistles and books are found so confused with others that the result plainly appears not so much a compilation by the diligence of learned men for the common profit, as some tangled and contorted mass of corruptions produced by the greed of the avaricious by hurrying for the sake of gain. This when, by the report of most learned and also prudent men, I, Philip Lavagna, a citizen of Milan, understood, in the hope of doing a man’s part in benefiting in some respect my fellow-citizens, I obtained by the most diligent zeal a very correct copy with the help of distinguished scholars, and made it my business to have 300 volumes written out, attention being paid that each page, before it was printed off, should be read over and corrected by one of the doctors. And unless I shall find that I have wasted this labor, I will make it my business that many other texts for the future shall be most accurately copied, the interests of the public being as carefully preserved as my own.
With Tully’s words once phrases rude were twined: