Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/364

 turned over the pages with a curiosity easy to be imagined, and compared it with Berti's publication, we discovered, to our no small surprise, its many omissions and inaccuracies. The idea then occurred to us of making a copy of all the documents in the collection with the greatest possible precision. Not the least "improvement" should be made; the text should be reproduced exactly, with its peculiar orthography, accentuation, and punctuation, its abbreviations, errors, and special marks, so far as it was possible by means of typography.

We made known our intention to the first prefect of the Vatican Library, Mgr. Martinuzzi, to whom Cardinal Simeoni had referred us; he not only made not the slightest objection, but showed great interest in our project. During our long daily tarriance in the Vatican afterwards, he was most obliging, and heaped attentions upon us which lightened the labour.

We might have been engaged about three weeks in copying the MS., sending the pages copied during the day to Messrs. Cotta, at Stuttgard, to be printed, when we were surprised one morning by a visit in the Vatican from M. de L'Epinois. He told us that he had been two months at Rome, and had undertaken a correction of Berti's book from the original. We informed him of our enterprise, which he spoke of as "quite a different thing"; and when we returned his call, he again spoke of a correction of Berti, and regretted that he had not copied the whole MS. Of any intention of publishing it complete he said not a word. We therefore contentedly went on with our work; the copying was nearly finished and the printing in progress, when one afternoon on our return from the Vatican we found a letter from Epinois, in which he said that he had not had time to call on us again, and informed us of the speedy appearance of his complete publication of the Vatican MS., and that we should receive a copy in a few days. This announcement was most surprising.