Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/35

 points out that Xylander, writing in 1568, says only that he was assured by Conrad Gesner that the Marcus came from the Palatine library, not that he knew that fact himself. He suggests therefore that Gesner, in his dedication, confused the Marinus which did come from the Palatine library with the Marcus, which did not. He appears to overlook the fact that the printer says expressly that both books were in the same volume, a volume which Xylander presumably never saw in its entirety. Schenkl has a further point. He says: 'Inasmuch as the copy of Marinus' Proclus handed to Gesner by Toxites was certainly copied from a codex formerly in the Palatine library and now preserved in the Vatican at Rome, it might easily happen that Gesner should fancy that what he found noted about the origin of his apograph applied also to the Meditations, which he supposed were bound up in the same volume.' It is strange that, if this were indeed the fact, Boissonade should have treated the first edition of Marinus' Proclus as evidence for the text instead of consulting the manuscript from which it is here presumed to be derived. Further, the Vatican MS. to which Schenkl is referring is dated. It was written by Andreas Darmarius in Madrid for Julius Pacius de Beriga in 1579, just twenty years after Gesner printed the Marcus and the Marinus. Again, the first edition stops with the opening words of ch. 22, the printer adding: 'pauca videntur deesse', whereas Pacius' xxvii