[Illustration: Latin Bible. Vicenza: Leonardus Achates, 1476.] Lector quisquis es, si christiane sentis, te non pigeat hoc opus sanctissimum, que biblia inscribitur, magna cum animi voluptate degustare, degustandumque aliis persuadere: nuper impressum a Leonardo Basileensi magna cum diligentia. In eo enim fidei nostre fundamentum situm est: et christiane religionis decus ac radix. Ex eo tibi cognitionem rerum omnium in quibus salus nostra consistit legendo comparabis: quod eo libentius facere debes quo in tam felici seculo codex hic preciosissimus in lucem emendatissimus uenit, pontificatus uidelicet sanctissimi domini nostri pape domini Xisti [Sixti] quarti anno quinto, et imperii christianissimi Frederici tertii anno uigesimo sexto, et Andree Vendramini ducis inclyti uenetorum anno primo. MCCCCLXXVI sexto ydus maias. 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.