L’opra beata de miraculi tanti
Di quella che nel Ciel monta e dismonta
Accompagnata con gli angeli e sancti.
Philippo da Lauagna qui vi si conta
E state el maestro de si dolce canti.
Impressum anno Domini MCCCCLXVIIII di xviiii Maii.
Within Milan is where has been printed the blessed work of so great miracles of Her who ascends and descends in Heaven, accompanied by the angels and saints. Filippo da Lavagna here is the speaker, and is become the master of so sweet songs. Printed in the year of the Lord 1469, on May 19.
But this is another instance of the risks of using Roman numerals (compare the three “1468” colophons cited in Chapter III), since the V in this date is clearly a misprint for a second X, which in some copies correctly takes its place.
A possible explanation of Lavagna’s boast in 1473 lies in the fact that he was by birth a Milanese, while Zaroto came from Parma; so that if we may take the latter half of the colophon to mean “the first man in this town who introduced and discovered this art of printing,” it would be literally correct—that is, if we can be sure that Lavagna was actually a printer at all, a point on which Mr. Proctor was very doubtful. But to raise this question is perhaps only a modern refinement, since without the help of the doctrine qui facit per alium facit per se we must accuse many worthy fifteenth-century tradesmen of lying in their colophons.