On this great poem, by which every page,
Poet himself, he helps to clarify.
Pesaro’s son, Christoph Berardi hight,
Hath all corrected, though with many a fear
Of lofty themes, hard to pursue aright.
The printer Wendelin, who from Speier came here:
And since Christ’s birth there urges now its flight
The fourteen hundred six and seventieth year.
This putting of dates into verse is sad work. In Jenson’s early colophons, instead of dates (which are added in prose), we have the name of the reigning doge to wrestle with. Thus, in his edition of the “Rhetorica” and “De Inuentione” of Cicero we find the following verse and prose colophon: