PREFACE.

...but I did not wish to be troublesome regarding minor details; even so, what they did for my sake is very significant and worthy of the highest gratitude, which I testify here that I hold for them. — I did not think it necessary to include the entire differing readings of the Basel and Torelli editions, but I have excerpted whatever seemed capable of being taken from them to emend the words of Archimedes. Otherwise, I have most often followed the Florentine codex and tacitly departed from Torelli, and in such places, silence should be taken as testimony to the reading of the Florentine codex; likewise, I wish to be believed where I have indicated its reading differently than Bandini did in his collation for the Basel edition, which exists in Torelli’s work.

In the critical commentary, I have used these abbreviations:
F = Florentine Laurentian codex, plut. XXVIII, 4.
V = Venetian codex, St. Mark's CCCV.
A = Parisian codex No. 2359.
B = Parisian codex No. 2360.
C = Parisian codex No. 2361.
D = Parisian codex No. 2362.
ed. Basil. = Basel edition, 1544, folio.
Cr. = The interpretation of James of Cremona added to it.
uulgo = signifies the consensus of all authors except those who are explicitly named.
corr. = corrected.
comp. = abbreviation.

The learned men who have written about Archimedes in recent times are not many, nor have they contributed much to the emendation of his writings. The resources I was able to use are these:
Rivaltus — Works of Archimedes. Paris 1615, folio.
Torelli — Works of Archimedes. Oxford 1792, folio.