Of the Familiar Letters of M. Tullius Cicero many volumes have been copied in different places of Italy by this new art of the printers, and if these, as they are many in number, were also zealously and sufficiently corrected, there had been no need for this new work. But they are confused by so many errors that not only are letters and words substituted for one another in a most disorderly tangle, but also whole epistles and books are found so confused with others that the result plainly appears not so much a compilation by the diligence of learned men for the common profit, as some tangled and contorted mass of corruptions produced by the greed of the avaricious by hurrying for the sake of gain. This when, by the report of most learned and also prudent men, I, Philip Lavagna, a citizen of Milan, understood, in the hope of doing a man’s part in benefiting in some respect my fellow-citizens, I obtained by the most diligent zeal a very correct copy with the help of distinguished scholars, and made it my business to have 300 volumes written out, attention being paid that each page, before it was printed off, should be read over and corrected by one of the doctors. And unless I shall find that I have wasted this labor, I will make it my business that many other texts for the future shall be most accurately copied, the interests of the public being as carefully preserved as my own. With Tully’s words once phrases rude were twined: Here uncorrupted Cicero you shall find. Glory of heaven, Christ’s mother, holiest maid, Ever to thee, with him, all praise be paid. 25 March, 1472. Even better than this, however, is the colophon to the Brescia Lucretius, in which we see the editor dismayed at first by the obvious defects of his copy, but resolving at length to print it on the ground that his inability to find any other was the best proof of its rarity. Titi Lucretii Cari finis. Lucretii unicum meas in manus cum pervenisset exemplar de eo imprimendo hesitaui: quod erat difficile unico de exemplo quae librarii essent praeterita negligentia illa corrigere. Verum ubi alterum perquisitum exemplar adinuenire non potui, hac ipsa motus difficultate unico etiam de exemplari volui librum quam maxime rarum communem multis facere studiosis: siquidem facilius erit pauca loca uel aliunde altero exemplari extricato uel suo studio castigare et diligentia: quam integro carere uolumine. Presertim cum a fabulis quae uacuas (ut inquit poeta) delectant mentes remotus Lucretius noster de rerum natura questiones tractet acutissimas tanto ingenii acumine tantoque lepore uerborum ut omnes qui illum secuti poete sunt: eum ita suis in descriptionibus imitentur, et Virgilius presertim, poetarum princeps, ut ipsis cum uerbis tria interdum et amplius metra suscipiant. Thoma Ferando auctore.