Here end the Decretals, most correctly printed in the bounteous city of Rome, queen of the whole world, by those excellent men Master Ulrich Han, a German, and Simon di Niccolo of Lucca: with the ordinary glosses of Bernard of Parma and his additions, which are found in few copies; both printed and corrected with the greatest diligence. Purchase these, book-buyer, with a light heart, for you will find such excellence in this volume that you will be right in easily reckoning other editions as worth no more than a straw. In the year of our Lord 1474, September 20, in the fourth year of the Pontificate of Sixtus IV, by divine providence Pope. If Han relied on the superiority of his work to defeat his rivals, other publishers preferred to have the advantage of coming earlier to market, and we find Stephanus Corallus, at Parma, actually apologizing with a very vivid metaphor for misprints in his edition of the “Achilleis” of Statius on the ground that he had rushed it through the press to forestall rivals. Of course, the rivals were envious and malevolent,—that might be taken for granted,—but the assumption that a purchaser was to acquiesce in bad work in order that Corallus might hurry his book out quickly only for his own profit was merely impudent. [Illustration: Statius. Achilleis. Parma: Steph. Corallus, 1473.] Si quas, optime lector, hoc in opere lituras inueneris nasum ponito; nam Stephanus Corallus Lugdunensis inuidorum quorundam maliuolentia lacessitus, qui idem imprimere tentarunt, citius quam asparagi coquantur id absoluit, ac summo studio emendatum literarum studiosis legendum tradidit Parme M.cccc.lxxiii. x Cal. April. Should you find any blots in this work, excellent reader, lay scorn aside; for Stephanus Corallus of Lyons, provoked by the ill will of certain envious folk who tried to print the same book, finished it more quickly than asparagus is cooked, corrected it with the utmost zeal, and published it, for students of literature to read, at Parma, March 23, 1473.