Excusatio Lazari

An excusatio Lazari or "Lazzaro's disclaimer"^[1] is a message to the reader found occasionally in publications, whereby the editor, publisher, or biblio pole transfers the blame for any errors to the anonymous printer while forging a connection with his readership.^[1]^: 291^[2]^: 19 Included for the first time in his 1497 edition of Terence by Lazzaro de' Soardi [it],^[1]^: 290f. the message may be found in books by other publishers and into the twenty-first century.^[3]^[4]

Notes

↑ "If by chance anything should offend your eyes, reader, because of how a line of mine might read, with a faulty character or two, you may wish to emend; for Lazzaro your bookseller did not put the final touches to me with those blemishes, more it is a matter of the befuddled artlessness of the printer when, at a late hour, he turned his weary hands to his arts." [Followed by:] "Virtue alone overcomes all."

References

1 2 3 Torello-Hill, Giulia (2025). "The Paratext of the Editions of Classical Roman Comedy Printed by Lazzaro de' Soardi as a 'Zone of Transaction'". Italian Studies. 80 (3): 288–302. doi:10.1080/00751634.2025.2546217. hdl:1959.11/71544.
↑ Mortimer, Ruth (1992). "St. Catherine of Siena and the Printed Book". The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 86 (1): 11–22. JSTOR 24303041.
↑ "GIOACCHINO da Fiore (ca.1145-1202). Interpretatio...in Hieremiam Prophetam (sancto dicante spiritu) ad haec usq; tempora minime prospecta (nunc vero eius iam coepta impletione; intellectumq; dante vexatione) in dies magis perspicua fiet. Venice: Bernardinus Benalius, 20 November 1525". Christie's. Retrieved 7 April 2026.
↑ Kirkendale, Ursula; Kirkendale, Warren (2015). "[Errata Corrige insert]". Hesiod's Theogony as Source of the Iconological Program of Giorgione's 'Tempesta': The Poet, Amalthea, The Infant Zeus and The Muses. Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki. ISBN 978-88-222-6408-4.

[1] "If by chance anything should offend your eyes, reader, because of how a line of mine might read, with a faulty character or two, you may wish to emend; for Lazzaro your bookseller did not put the final touches to me with those blemishes, more it is a matter of the befuddled artlessness of the printer when, at a late hour, he turned his weary hands to his arts." [Followed by:] "Virtue alone overcomes all."

[Paratext-2] 1 2 3 Torello-Hill, Giulia (2025). "The Paratext of the Editions of Classical Roman Comedy Printed by Lazzaro de' Soardi as a 'Zone of Transaction'". Italian Studies. 80 (3): 288–302. doi:10.1080/00751634.2025.2546217. hdl:1959.11/71544.

[3] Mortimer, Ruth (1992). "St. Catherine of Siena and the Printed Book". The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 86 (1): 11–22. JSTOR 24303041.

[4] "GIOACCHINO da Fiore (ca.1145-1202). Interpretatio...in Hieremiam Prophetam (sancto dicante spiritu) ad haec usq; tempora minime prospecta (nunc vero eius iam coepta impletione; intellectumq; dante vexatione) in dies magis perspicua fiet. Venice: Bernardinus Benalius, 20 November 1525". Christie's. Retrieved 7 April 2026.

[5] Kirkendale, Ursula; Kirkendale, Warren (2015). "[Errata Corrige insert]". Hesiod's Theogony as Source of the Iconological Program of Giorgione's 'Tempesta': The Poet, Amalthea, The Infant Zeus and The Muses. Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki. ISBN 978-88-222-6408-4.

[note 1]

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See also

Notes

References