This paper opened the Ordinum Pietas Conference. The author reviews his critical edition of Ordinum Pietas (1995), on which he worked during the period 1991-1995. He discusses its genesis and background, including the reasons for choosing this very work. In revisiting the edition he analyses the situation of an editor and commentator in 'digital proto-history' of the early nineties. In surveying his work on the edition, translation and commentary he brings up examples from the field of analytical bibliography, manuscript tradition, and problems of identifying quotations, with the discovery of the manuscript of Ordinum Pietas in the British Library as one of the most satisfactory results.