[Sidenote: _{ Pi} the direct ancestor of BF with probably a copy intervening_]
If _{ Pi}_ is the direct ancestor of _BF_, these manuscripts should contain no good readings not found in _{ Pi}_, unless their writers could arrive at such readings by easy emendation or unless there is contamination with some other source. From what we know of the text of _BF_ in general, the latter supposition may at once be ruled out. There are but three cases to consider, two of which may be readily disposed of: 64, 3 proferenda] conferenda _BF_ CONFERANDA _{ Pi}_; 64, 4 conprobasse] (comp.) _BF_ COMPROUASSE _{ Pi}_. These are simple slips, which a scribe might almost unconsciously correct as he wrote. The remaining error (63, 28 SIBI to _si_) is not difficult to emend when one considers the entire sentence: _quibus omnibus ita demum similis adolescet_, si _imbutus honestis artibus fuerit, quas_, etc. It is less probable, however, that _B_ with _{ Pi}_ before him should correct it as he wrote than, as we have already surmised, that a minuscule copy intervened between _{ Pi}_ and _B_, in which the letters _bi_ were deleted by some careful reviser. Two other passages tend to confirm this assumption of an intermediate copy. In 65, 6 (_tum optime libertati venia obsequio praeparatur_), _B_ has _optimae_, a false alteration induced perhaps by the following _libertati_. In _{ Pi}_, OPTIME stands at the end of the line. The scribe of _B_, had he not found _libertati_ immediately adjacent, would not so readily be tempted to emend; still, we should not make too much of this instance, as _B_ has a rather pronounced tendency to write _ae_ for _e_. A more certain case is 66, 7 fungar indicis] fungarindicis _ex_ fungari dicis _B_; here the error is easier to derive from an original in minuscules in which _in_ was abbreviated with a stroke above the _i_. There is abundant evidence elsewhere in the _Letters_ that the immediate ancestor of _BF_ was written in minuscules; I need not elaborate this point. Our present consideration is that apart from the three instances of simple emendation just discussed, there is no good reading of _B_ or _F_ in the portion of text contained in _{ Pi}_ that may not be found, by either the first or the second hand, in _{ Pi}_.[37]