Reader, whoever you are, if you have Christian feelings let it not annoy you to acquaint yourself with great pleasure of mind with this most sacred work which is entitled the Bible, and to persuade others to acquaint themselves with it, as it has lately been printed by Leonard of Basel with great diligence. For in it is seated the foundation of our faith, and the glory and root of the Christian religion. From reading it you will provide yourself with knowledge of all the things in which our salvation consists, and you should do this the more willingly because this most precious manuscript has been published in a most correct form at so happy an epoch, in the fifth year namely of the pontificate of our most holy lord Pope Sixtus IV, the twenty-sixth of the imperial rule of the most Christian Frederick III, and the first of the noble doge of Venice Andrea Vendramini. May 10, 1476.
As a rule, the books chosen for praise were of less self-evident merit, notably grammatical works by which a royal road was promised to the mysteries of Latin. Thus an unidentified Strassburg printer (possibly Husner, but known only as the “Printer of the 1493 Casus breues Decretalium”) recommended his “Exercitium Puerorum Grammaticale” not only to boys, but to friars, nuns, merchants, and every one else who needed Latin, in these glowing terms:
Finit tractatus secundus exercitii puerorum grammaticalis, in quo de regimine et constructione omnium dictionum secundum ordinem octo partium orationis processum est per regulas et questiunculas adeo lucidas faciles atque breues, doctissimorum virorum exemplis creberrimis roboratas, ut quisque sine preceptore eas discere, scire et intelligere possit. In quo si qui grammatici studiosi, cuiuscunque status fuerint, pueri, fratres, sorores, mercatores, ceterique seculares aut religiosi legerint, studuerint atque se oblectauerint, Finem grammatice ausim dicere breuissime sine magno labore consequentur. Impressum Argentine et finitus Anno &c M.cccc.xciiij.
Here ends the second treatise of the boys’ grammatical exercise, in which a course is given on the government and construction of all phrases according to the order of the eight parts of speech, by rules and little questions so clear, easy, and short, and confirmed by very numerous examples from the works of most learned men, that any one without a teacher can learn, know, and understand them. If any grammatical students, of whatever rank they be, whether boys, friars, nuns, merchants, or any one else, secular or religious, have read, studied, and delighted themselves in this, I make bold to say that very shortly and without much labor they will quickly reach the end of grammar. Printed at Strassburg and finished in the year, &c., 1494.
So, again, Arnold Pannartz, one of the prototypographers at Rome, vaunted the “De Elegantia Linguae Latinae” of Laurentius Valla as affording diligent students (they are warned that they must bring care and zeal to the task) a chance of making rapid progress.
Laurentius Valla. Elegantiae. Rome: Arnold Pannartz, 1475.
Laurentii Vallae uiri eruditissimi et oratoris clarissimi de Elegantia linguae latinae Liber Sextus et ultimus diligenti emendatione finitus ab incarnatione domini anno M.CCCC.LXXV. die uero secunda mensis Iulii: sedente Sixto IIII Pon. Max. Anno eius quarto. Hos uero libros impressit Clarus ac diligentissimus artifex Arnoldus Pannartz, Natione Germanus, in domo nobilis uiri Petri de maximis, ciuis Romani. Tu qui Latine loqui cupis hos tibi eme libros, in quibus legendis si curam studiumque adhibueris, breui te haud parum profecisse intelliges.