The appropriate and frequently quoted words of Orazio
Bacci, “E speriamo che anche del Catone non si ritorni a parlare troppo presto,”1 have taken their place among those maxims
Le qua' fuggendo tutto 'l mondo onora.
The copious stream of Cato literature has flowed on undiminished, and the end is apparently no nearer than before. If, then, a new recruit is to join the procession of those who seem to honor Bacci's precept more in the breach than in the observance, it behooves him to declare at the outset that he does so only because he has material to offer which he believes to be new and of a nature to expedite the ultimate solution of the problem.