The corrective practice of intervening with punctual pen corrections on the specimens, or on the individual print sheets (stop press correction or even pen correction), is attested since the fifteenth century. See the example of De Aetna by Pietro Bembo, 1495. Many editions, especially scientific ones, will undergo this practice, due to the need to intervene with precision on the reliability of the text. The most sensational case is that of Galilei with his Sidereus, where the author's interventions are not numerous but punctual. The same happens for this edition of Viviani, where a series of precise and punctual corrections allow the author to amend the text on key points.
Viviani's faithful reconstruction of the fifth book of Apollonius' Conics, undertaken after the first four books had been discovered and published. Before it appeared, Borelli actually found the text of the fifth book in an Arabic manuscript in the grand ducal library in Florence. This extraordinary manuscript actually included the first seven books of Apollonius, but Borelli kept the contents secret until Viviani could complete its publication. A translation from the Arabic appeared in 1661 under the direction of Borelli, revealing a "substantial similarity" between Viviani's reconstruction and the real