The criterion followed is, of course, the same. A note seems necessary. In the Introduction to the first tome we have already spoken about the second edition of the second volume, edited by Ettore Stampini. Well, in 1929 the revision, again by Stampini himself, of the commented text of only the fifth book came out.[1] Even though the reviewer states in his Prolegomenon that “the criteria... followed to revise and republish Book V of Lucretius by CARLO GIUSSANI are the same ones that... have guided the reprinting of the first two books,”, we can assure the reader (who will be able to verify for himself) that the result of Stampinian commitment is quite different. The illustrious editor, in fact, proceeded to an accurate comparison of the Giussani text not only with the codices O and Q, but also with three other Laurentian codices (cf. p. 218), reporting the various lessons in square brackets. He even consulted the editions of Merrill, Diels and Ernout, almost always reporting differences. The Stampimi's additions have been inserted by us in the comment, yes, in square brackets, but with the acronym “St.,” that is, [St.: ...], in order to avoid any possible confusion. Not all editorial errors have been detected by Stampini, such as incorrect quotations, exchange in numbers of both the authors cited, and Lucretian verses, etc.. Giussani himself, though rarely, inadvertently uses Lachmannian numbering of verses instead of Bernays'. Such kind of imperfections, moreover, have been revealed more frequent in books III÷VI than in books I÷II: for example in the commentary to III 255-257 a passage is attributed to the “Heautimorumenos” of Terence, which is instead taken from the “Orator” of Cicero; to IV 1109 a quotation from the “Aeneid” is assigned to Livy, etc.. Particular care has been taken to integrate references to journals, often insufficient and sometimes wrong: ex. gr. to III 145 a proposal of Tohte is ascribed to Kannengiesser, etc.. We have also consulted the translation of Camillo Giussani, son of Carlo: frankly indefensible.

With that ends our work. Now Lucretius' students and scholars have at their disposal a complete and free tool, which will save them from library searches and related inconveniences.

As always we hope, in order to make our publications less and less imperfect, that the readers will willingly communicate to us typos or imperfections, that we will be careful to eliminate; and for this we thank them in advance.

Finally, we hope that this work of ours will be a stimulus for those willing students who, following our example, will want to draw from oblivion those precious comments to the classical authors—and there are many of them—who lie senselessly neglected in our libraries.

Dorno, June 2019.