Excerpt from M. Manilii Astronomicon, Vol. 5 A preface to this Fifth book shall follow, but first I will take a retrospective survey of the period and I begin with the question of the mss. Of 3, the second of the two families, now shrunk to a single representative M, I need here say little beyond what will be found on pp. 101 sq. And 104. I have satisfied myself by comparison that U and R throughout, and V so far as it concerns us, are scions of M, and I have no doubt that H, though I have not read it through, is another. They all proffer its Italian corrections as well as its original text. But, although M is thus left alone in the witness-box, the sign [3 may usefully be kept to denote its lost exemplar, the MS discovered by Poggio for a vast number of the corruptions in M have sprouted from the pen of its ignorant and unpractised scribe and are no part of an ancient tradition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.