PLUTARCHUS (c. 45-c.120). La prima [and La seconda et ultima] parte delle vite di Plutarcho: di greco in Latino: et di latino in volgare tradotte. Venice: Niccolò Zoppino, 1525.

An elegant vernacular edition of Plutarch's Lives, with woodcut illustrations. Plutarch’s influential work of biography and historiography pairs the lives of famous Romans and Greeks, drawing lessons from the contrast. This text was almost totally unknown to the Latin Middle Ages, but when Manuel Chrysoloras began teaching Greek in Italy in the 1390s, he set his pupils the exercise of translating it into Latin. This is a translation into Italian from the Latin by Battista Alessandro Iaconelli and Giulio Bordone. Some copies include an extra two gatherings after the colophon, not mentioned in the index, containing the Life of Marcus Brutus. EDIT 16 41051.

Two volumes, quarto (207 x 152mm). Without the two gatherings sometimes present after the colophon containing the Life of Marcus Brutus. Both titles in woodcut border, second title printed in red and black; woodcut illustration at head of each life (repairs to vol 2 title with occasional loss of type, small repairs in blank margins of a few other leaves, one leaf just extended at foreedge; a few light stains). 19th-century half vellum painted gray and speckled boards, blue edges, morocco title labels. Provenance: a few marginal marks, including short Greek inscription on title on vol. 2 – inscription noting purchase dated 1729 – old stamp on title of second volume – Princes of Liechtenstein (armorial bookplate) – Nathan Comfort Starr, 1896-1981, Arthurian scholar and collector (bookplate; his sale, Sotheby's New York, 25 June 1981, lot 115).