The third class comprises manuscripts containing eight books, the eighth being omitted and the ninth called the eighth. Representatives of this class are all codices of the fifteenth century, though the class has a more ancient basis than that, namely a lost manuscript of Verona. This is best attested by _D_, a Dresden codex, while almost all other manuscripts of this class descend from a free recension made by Guarino and conflated with _F_; _o_, _u_, and _x_ are the representatives of this recension (_G_) that are reported by Merrill. The relation of this third class to the second is exceedingly close; indeed, it may be merely a branch of it.[30] [Footnote 30: See Merrill’s discussion of the different possibilities, _C.P._ X, p. 14.] [Sidenote: _The early editions_] As is often the case, the leading manuscript authorities are only inadequately represented in the early editions. The Editio Princeps (_p_) of 1471 was based on a manuscript of the Guarino recension. A Roman editor in 1474 added part of Book VIII, putting it at the end and calling it Book IX; he acquired this new material, along with various readings in the other books, from some manuscript of Class II that may have come down from the north. Three editors, called ς by Keil--Pomponius Laetus 1490, Beroaldus 1498, and Catanaeus 1506--took _r_ as a basis; but Laetus had another and a better representative of the same type of text as that from which _r_ had drawn, and he likewise made use of _V_. With the help of these new sources the ς editors polished away a large number of the gross blunders of _p_ and _r_, and added a sometimes unnecessary brilliance of emendation. Avantius’s edition of part of Book X in 1502 was appropriated by Beroaldus in the same year and by Catanaeus in 1506; these latter editors had no new sources at their disposal. No wonder that the Parisinus seemed a godsend to Aldus. The only known ancient manuscripts whose readings had been utilized in the editions preceding his own were _F_ and _V_, both incomplete representatives of Classes I and II. The manuscripts discovered by the Roman editor and Laetus were of great help at the time, but we have no certain evidence of their age. _B_ and _M_ were not accessible.[31] Now, besides the transcript of Giocondo and his other six volumes, whatever these may have been, Aldus had the ancient codex itself with all ten books complete. Everybody admits that the Parisinus, as shown by the readings of Aldus, is clearly associated with the manuscripts of Class I. Its contents corroborate the evidence of the title in _B_, which indicates descent from some codex containing ten books. [Footnote 31: _C.P._ X, p. 20.] [Sidenote: _Π a member of Class I_]