One of the selling points made in prefaces of general Latin reference works was their versatility in offering “something for everyone.” Certainly works like the Calepino, the Polyanthea, and the Theatrum were used in a variety of contexts, although our evidence is often limited and incomplete. Prefaces and dedications, which were targeted understandably to wealthy princes and businessmen from whom the author might hope for a gratification, often noted the utility of compilations to men of action too busy to read much themselves. The prime example of such use is the copy of the Polyanthea of 1514 annotated by Henry VIII of England on topics of particular personal and political interest to him (e.g., “law,” “matrimony,” “pope”).

As engines of copia, compilations of quotations and exempla were of use to all who composed in Latin and sought to impress by their mastery of textual culture, both ancient and biblical. For example, a late sixteenth-century Parisian lawyer can be found copying from printed florilegia (Estienne’s collection of Greek epigrams and a historical commonplace book), drawing up practice arguments in his notebooks. Preachers were the original audience for the medieval florilegium and continued to use the Polyanthea. Baroque Catholic preaching commonly adopted what has been called a “thesaurus style,” packing in many examples, quotations, and encyclopedic information that seminarists were urged to start collecting from the beginning of their studies. This copia could also easily be gotten from printed florilegia if one’s notes proved deficient. For example, the library of the seminary at Fiesole, formed after the Council of Trent decreed that each diocese should have a seminary to train priests, owned a Polyanthea, a Calepino, and a Theatrum as its principal reference works. Doctors may also have turned to compilations for quotations or examples. The Italian doctor Girolamo Mercuriale asked Zwinger repeatedly to send him a copy of the 1586 Theatrum even though he already owned a copy of the 1571 edition; but at least in one instance where he might have, Mercuriale did not rely on that work for his examples. Since Zwinger was trained and active as a physician, his Theatrum is particularly rich in medical examples, and his correspondence network included many medical practitioners.