Note 406 — Chapter IV

The Medicean Archives, filza xlvi., contains the following letter of Bessarion (B. episcopus Sabin. card. patr. Constant. Nicænus sedis apost. legatus) to Lorenzo de’ Medici: ‘Illustrious and noble lord, dear friend,—The bookseller, Vespasiano di Filippo, whom we mentioned shortly before at the close of a letter addressed to you, has now sent us information about the works of Augustine that he had written for us, with an estimate of the expense with which we are entirely satisfied. He writes us he has divided the work in question into nine volumes, with miniatures, bindings, and all that belongs to it. One volume is wanting to complete the collection, respecting which he writes that he will hasten to finish it, which we also desire. For payment he has still to receive eighty-seven ducats, besides the four hundred which your bank has accredited to him in our name. We request you to pay him this remainder and to place it to our account. Take the books to yourself and keep them in a suitable place till we write to you about them. May it be well with your Magnificence! Frascati, May 23, 1472.’ The learned ecclesiastic perhaps never saw the books, for he died on November 19 of the same year. The copy is in the Marciana, where, however, only seven volumes are found. It is decorated with Bessarion’s arms, and in the fourth volume we find the name of the copyist, Francesco degli Ugolini, Fiorentino, 1471. G. Valentinelli speaks of this manuscript in his catalogue of the MSS. of the Marciana, ii. 30.