The figures for the number of items can be misleading, as a some hymns are divided (the Dies irae appears divided into three for the last week of the liturgical year, believed to have been the period for which it was originally written; the Pange lingua gloriosi praelium certaminis is divided into two; the A solis ortus cardine and the Hostis Herodes impie for Christmas and Epiphany are parts of the same hymn by Sedulius, etc.)

For comparison, the 1568 breviary had (according to Lentini, 1984, xxix) about 90 hymns; by around Pius X's time there were about 150. Joseph Connolly's Hymns of the Roman Liturgy (1957) has 154 items. Of course many others had come and gone in the intervening period. 19th-century breviaries have a good number of feasts which later disappeared, many of which had proper hymns. And that, of course, is without even considering the neo-gallican liturgies.

One item that was in the Tridentine breviary (for Lent) but which had disappeared apparently thanks to Urban VIII (an accident?) was Ad preces nostras deitatis aures (or Aures ad nostras deitatis preces). It was restored by Lentini in two parts for the (daytime) Office of Reading in weeks 2 and 4 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Of the 42 Lentini hymns in the Lit Horarum and the 1984 volume, 31 had not been in the 1968 volume. It looks as if Lentini frequently took the opportunity, where people complained about items in the 1968 version, to include more of his own work. One notable change from 1968 was his hymns for individual Apostles. In the 1968 book he had not actually claimed authorship of any items - his own were just described as anonymous. He also added his own compositions for the Office of the Dead, which had not been thought to be required in 1968. His hymns include O virgo mater, filia, and Quae caritatis fulgidum which are a remarkable Latin version of Dante, Paradiso, 33.1-21 - apparently Paul VI particularly praised these. I don't think he adopted any other Latin renderings of a vernacular text.

There is also a volume published by Solesmes in 1983 - the Liber Hymnarius. This gives the same hymns, along with the best-researched versions of the melodies (mostly much as in the 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum, rather than in the last editions of the Liber Usualis, which unfortunately were still following Solesmes' earlier efforts in the Antiphonale Romanum of 1912). For the Monastic Supplement in the 1983 volume a further 60 hymns are included, many from earlier OSB antiphoners, especially those for the Gallic Congregation.

Lentini was a very fine Latin poet - born I think in 1902, early enough to get a decent classical Latin training. He clearly had a profound and spiritual sense of Latin hymnography, and lived early enough to have spent much of his monastic life singing the office. But it is arguably unfortunate that so many of his own efforts were included - far more than those of any other writer (though 152 items in the 1984 book are anonymous) - thus Ambrose has 8 items, Bede has 2 or 3, Leo XIII likewise, Peter Damian has 9, Prudentius has 10 (all selected from much longer texts of his). Other relatively modern writers do get a look in. D'Anversa (died 1968) has 2, Genovesi (d 1967) has 5, Piacenza (d 1919) has 2, and Verghetti (d 1945) has 1 (Beata caeli gaudia, where each stanza begins with the next letter of the author's Christian name, Blasius - rather absurd really).

I think I'm right in saying that all the authors whose texts were adopted and who lived after the 16th century were Italian - was Lentini prejudiced? Certainly there is no trace of any of the neo-gallican hymns (of Santeuil, Coffin etc). So no "Iordanis oris praevia"/On Jordan's banks the Baptist sings. Strangely, that's a policy rather different from that pursued by the 1970 Missale Romanum, which has pillaged a good number of collects, prefaces etc. from the neo-gallican books.

It is obviously possible to criticize the extent - or indeed the lack of it - of the restoration of the ancient pre-Urban VIII texts. Vat II (SC 93) asked for it to be done "quantum expedire videtur", mythology was to be removed (so, out with Olympus, Avernus etc - though Tartarus survives in the Requiem, but Lentini didn't deal with that - personally I'd have let the words stand as poetic, rather than mythological, expressions for Heaven and Hell). Legendary material was removed - thus St Agnes now got the hymn Igne divini radians amoris by Alfano di Salerno (died 1085), but 5 of the 10 stanzas were dropped for their legendary material. Other confusions were also avoided. Thus Lentini produced two new hymns for Mary Magdalen, because nearly all medieval hymns for her tie themselves in knots by identifying her with the anonymous woman in Luke c. 7 and/or with Mary the sister of Martha.

SC 93 also said that other items from the "treasure" were to be accepted "pro opportunitate" - but interestingly there was no reference to writing new hymns!

One criticism I would have for some of the hymns taken from the early "treasure" is that there is often no real evidence, or likelihood, that they were ever actually used in a liturgical context outside perhaps very limited areas - they just didn't catch on. I don't know if Bede's hymns were ever sung even in his own monastery.

Nearly everywhere the restoration of the ancient texts is a benefit. Just take the Veni Creator - the 2nd line now read "donum Dei altissimi" as in the original. Urban VIII's people had objected to the hiatus. But their version - Altissimi donum Dei - produces when sung wrong accentuation on the first word. And the unsingable "digitus paternae dexterae" was replaced with the original "dextrae Dei tu digitus" (Urban's people had objected to this because the 1st syllable of digitus is short, not long). Sometimes Lentini modified the original to his own taste. Thus, he replaced the odd phraseology of the Easter hymn "Ad regias Agni dapes" with its original "Ad cenam Agni providi", but then altered various lines. Lines 7-8 were "cruore eius roseo gustando vivimus Deo" - but he wrote "sed et cruorem roseum gustando, Deo vivimus" - but I can't see that this was an improvement.