AD PIVM
SECVNDVM PONTIFICEM MAXIMVM. IACOBI FELTRENSIS ET BELLVNENSIS
ANTISTITIS PRAEFATIO: [G]LORIOSA.... The ornamentation of the ten-line
illuminated initial G is of the interlaced style, and a border of
similar pattern surrounds the entire page, enclosing on the front margin
vignettes--a vase, two rabbits and a stork--and at the foot the
Piccolomini arms, supported by kneeling angels and surmounted by the
papal keys and tiara. Each of the ten books has a heading in burnished
gold in which the dedication to Pius II. is repeated, and an initial of
like character to that of the preface, with a marginal ornament. The
occasional marginal subject-headings and the book-number at the top of
each leaf are likewise in gold.
The Latin text has thus far been printed only in Muratori's Rerum
Italicarum Scriptores (of which a new edition is now in progress), vol.
xix, Milan, 1731, from a MS. then, and still, preserved in the library
of the Episcopal Seminary at Padua. This MS., the only one which he was
able to discover, Muratori describes in the following language: "Codex
autem Patavinus quamquam pervetustus a non satis docto Librario
profectus est ac proinde occurrunt ibi quaedam parum castigata, quaedam
etiam plane vitiata.
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