PLUTARCHUS (ca. 45-ca. 120). Vitae parallelae, translated from Greek into Latin by Franciscus Philelphus, Johannes Tortellius, Lapus Biragus, Donatus Acciaiuolus, Antonius Pacinus, Guarinus Veronensis, Leonardus Brunus, Franciscus Barbarus, Leonardus Justinianus, Alamannus Rinuccinus and Jacobus Angelus de Scarperia. - Donatus ACCIAIUOLUS (1429-1478). Vita Hannibalis. -Vita Scipionis Africani. -Vita Caroli Magni. - CORNELIUS NEPOS (ca. 100-ca. 25 B.C.). Vita Titi Pomponii Attici. - Leonardus BRUNUS ARETINUS (1369-1444). Vita Ciceronis. -Vita Aristotelis. - AELIUS DONATUS (fl. 4th century). Vita Virgilii. - GUARINUS VERONENSIS (1374-1460). Vita Platonis. - HERODOTUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. -- PLUTARCHUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. - ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.). Evagoras, translated from Greek into Latin by Guarinus Veronensis. - XENOPHON (ca. 428-ca. 354 B.C.). Agesilaos, translated from Greek into Latin by Baptista Guarinus. - FESTUS (fl. late 4th century). Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani. Edited by Johannes Antonius Campanus (1429-1477). [Strassburg: The R-Press (Adolf Rusch and Johann Mentelin), between 1473 and 1477].2 volumes, royal 2o (390 x 275 mm). Collation: [112 210 38 4-1310 148 15-2610 278 2810; 2910 3012 31-4010 416 42-5210] ([Vol. I]blank, 1/2r editor's dedication to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, table, 1/3r preface by Francesco Filelfo to Plutarch's life of Theseus, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo, life of Hannibal, blank; [Vol. II] preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Nicias, preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Dion, preface by Leonardo Bruni, life of Cicero, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo to the life of Demetrius,v blank). 514 leaves. 49 lines. Type 1:103R. 8-line initial spaces, a few of four or five lines, some with printed guide- letters. Carefully executed Lombard initials in red or blue, many with elegant void ornamentation, paragraph signs in red or blue, capitals slashed in red. Rubrics, running titles, and foliation supplied in red. Manuscript signatures and catchwords, some manuscript guide letters. Notes for rubricator visible in margins. (Occasional smudges from the print shop, small losses to ca. 6 blank margins, detached and laid down inside back cover of vol. 1, 30/5.8 disjoint, first line of 51/2v imperfectly inked.)Binding: contemporary Louvain binding of blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each cover divided by quadruple fillets into a blank frame and a central panel, the latter tooled with triple fillets to a saltire pattern, the intersections of fillets marked by a small star in a circle, each compartment filled with a single tool, either a wyvern in a square frame or a rectangle containing a bird and a bow-and-arrow with four stars and the letters "ve", the two central lozenges of each cover with the bust of a young man with long hair and a cap, the mark of JOHN OF WESTPHALIA or the binder who worked for him (Goldschmidt 25, cf. also 26), preserving a number of deckle edges, brass edge and corner protectors to tail edges of volumes, remains of two clasps to each volume, original manuscript label on vellum under horn with brass frame mounted on front cover of each volume (scuffed with occasional loss of leather, discreet repair to front cover of vol. 1, rebacked, free endpapers renewed).Provenance: contemporary marginalia, including emendations to text -- Johannes Moeselaer (d. 1499), bachelor of theology and regent of the Paedogogium castri, one of the four divisions of the arts faculty at Louvain University, rector of the university in 1482: inscription (see below), his bequest to -- Herent (near Louvain), Augustinian Canons of Bethleem: partially deleted inscription, I (Pertinet volumen istud Monasterio Canonicorum Regularium in Bethleem iuxta Lovanium ex legato Honorabilis viri Magistri Johannis Moeselaer facultatis Theologie Bachalarii formati ac regentis Louanii in pedagogio Castri ...) -- erased inscription on first text leaf of each volume -- Burton Library, the Right Hon. Lord Monson: engraved armorial bookplates; sale, Sotheby's, 19 June 1951, lot 353 -- [Eric Speeckaert] -- [Lathrop Harper]Second edition. The text of this edition was set from that of the first edition, printed by Ulrich Han in Rome, ca. 1470-71. Whereas the present edition has printed headings, these were lacking in Han's edition, which, however, is superior in its rendering of proper names. Plutarch's Lives were 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 exercize of translating from them into Latin. The Lives also appealed to humanists because of the information they provided about personalities and events of Antiquity, and in Florence they were regarded with particular interest because they provided early evidence for the city's long history as a republic. Most of the translations printed here were produced in the first half of the 15th century by Italian humanists and had circulated separately in manuscript before they were collected, with similar works, for Ulrich Han's edition. Giovanni Antonio Campano, bishop of Cortone and Teramo, an orator and historian, was a friend of Pope Pius II, whose Commentaries he read and corrected, and of Pius' nephew, Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, later Pope Pius III, to whom he dedicated his edition of Plutarch. In 1469-70 Campano worked as editor and corrector for the press of Ulrich Han.The identification of the "R-Printer" as Anton Rusch, in partnership with his father-in-law Johann Mentelin, is derived from a letter of 18 February 1478 from the city council of Lübeck to Mentelin and Rusch asking for the return of a manuscript of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum doctrinale which had been loaned to them. Since this must relate to the unsigned edition of that work printed in the R-Press type 2 (Goff V-278=V-279), a type which includes capital sorts from R-Press type 1, it can be assumed that both types were used by Mentelin and Rusch in partnership. Based on the datable use of the paper stocks found in R-Press type 1 royal folios, Paul Needham has argued that these editions cannot be dated earlier than ca. 1473 (cf. Doheny I, 16). The terminus ante quem for the Plutarch is provided by the date of 1477 in the Tegernsee copy (cf. BSB-Ink.). In the present copy, most of the titles are printed, but a few have been supplied as rubrics.HC 13124; BMC I, 62 (IC. 647-648); BSB-Ink. P-625; CIBN P-490; Harvard/Walsh 69; M. Pade, "The Latin Translations of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth Century Italy and Their Manuscript Diffusion," in The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. C. Leonardi and B. Munk Olsen, Spoleto 1995, pp. 169-183; Goff P-831. (2)

PLUTARCHUS (ca. 45-ca. 120). Vitae parallelae, translated from Greek into Latin by Franciscus Philelphus, Johannes Tortellius, Lapus Biragus, Donatus Acciaiuolus, Antonius Pacinus, Guarinus Veronensis, Leonardus Brunus, Franciscus Barbarus, Leonardus Justinianus, Alamannus Rinuccinus and Jacobus Angelus de Scarperia. - Donatus ACCIAIUOLUS (1429-1478). Vita Hannibalis. -Vita Scipionis Africani. -Vita Caroli Magni. - CORNELIUS NEPOS (ca. 100-ca. 25 B.C.). Vita Titi Pomponii Attici. - Leonardus BRUNUS ARETINUS (1369-1444). Vita Ciceronis. -Vita Aristotelis. - AELIUS DONATUS (fl. 4th century). Vita Virgilii. - GUARINUS VERONENSIS (1374-1460). Vita Platonis. - HERODOTUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. -- PLUTARCHUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. - ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.). Evagoras, translated from Greek into Latin by Guarinus Veronensis. - XENOPHON (ca. 428-ca. 354 B.C.). Agesilaos, translated from Greek into Latin by Baptista Guarinus. - FESTUS (fl. late 4th century). Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani. Edited by Johannes Antonius Campanus (1429-1477). [Strassburg: The R-Press (Adolf Rusch and Johann Mentelin), between 1473 and 1477]. 2 volumes, royal 2o (390 x 275 mm). Collation: [112 210 38 4-1310 148 15-2610 278 2810; 2910 3012 31-4010 416 42-5210] ([Vol. I]blank, 1/2r editor's dedication to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, table, 1/3r preface by Francesco Filelfo to Plutarch's life of Theseus, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo, life of Hannibal, blank; [Vol. II] preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Nicias, preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Dion, preface by Leonardo Bruni, life of Cicero, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo to the life of Demetrius,v blank). 514 leaves. 49 lines. Type 1:103R. 8-line initial spaces, a few of four or five lines, some with printed guide- letters. Carefully executed Lombard initials in red or blue, many with elegant void ornamentation, paragraph signs in red or blue, capitals slashed in red. Rubrics, running titles, and foliation supplied in red. Manuscript signatures and catchwords, some manuscript guide letters. Notes for rubricator visible in margins. (Occasional smudges from the print shop, small losses to ca. 6 blank margins, detached and laid down inside back cover of vol. 1, 30/5.8 disjoint, first line of 51/2v imperfectly inked.) Binding: contemporary Louvain binding of blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each cover divided by quadruple fillets into a blank frame and a central panel, the latter tooled with triple fillets to a saltire pattern, the intersections of fillets marked by a small star in a circle, each compartment filled with a single tool, either a wyvern in a square frame or a rectangle containing a bird and a bow-and-arrow with four stars and the letters "ve", the two central lozenges of each cover with the bust of a young man with long hair and a cap, the mark of JOHN OF WESTPHALIA or the binder who worked for him (Goldschmidt 25, cf. also 26), preserving a number of deckle edges, brass edge and corner protectors to tail edges of volumes, remains of two clasps to each volume, original manuscript label on vellum under horn with brass frame mounted on front cover of each volume (scuffed with occasional loss of leather, discreet repair to front cover of vol. 1, rebacked, free endpapers renewed). Provenance: contemporary marginalia, including emendations to text -- Johannes Moeselaer (d. 1499), bachelor of theology and regent of the Paedogogium castri, one of the four divisions of the arts faculty at Louvain University, rector of the university in 1482: inscription (see below), his bequest to -- Herent (near Louvain), Augustinian Canons of Bethleem: partially deleted inscription, I (Pertinet volumen istud Monasterio Canonicorum Regularium in Bethleem iuxta Lovanium ex legato Honorabilis viri Magistri Johannis Moeselaer facultatis Theologie Bachalarii formati ac regentis Louanii in pedagogio Castri ...) -- erased inscription on first text leaf of each volume -- Burton Library, the Right Hon. Lord Monson: engraved armorial bookplates; sale, Sotheby's, 19 June 1951, lot 353 -- [Eric Speeckaert] -- [Lathrop Harper] Second edition. The text of this edition was set from that of the first edition, printed by Ulrich Han in Rome, ca. 1470-71. Whereas the present edition has printed headings, these were lacking in Han's edition, which, however, is superior in its rendering of proper names. Plutarch's Lives were 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 exercize of translating from them into Latin. The Lives also appealed to humanists because of the information they provided about personalities and events of Antiquity, and in Florence they were regarded with particular interest because they provided early evidence for the city's long history as a republic. Most of the translations printed here were produced in the first half of the 15th century by Italian humanists and had circulated separately in manuscript before they were collected, with similar works, for Ulrich Han's edition. Giovanni Antonio Campano, bishop of Cortone and Teramo, an orator and historian, was a friend of Pope Pius II, whose Commentaries he read and corrected, and of Pius' nephew, Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, later Pope Pius III, to whom he dedicated his edition of Plutarch. In 1469-70 Campano worked as editor and corrector for the press of Ulrich Han. The identification of the "R-Printer" as Anton Rusch, in partnership with his father-in-law Johann Mentelin, is derived from a letter of 18 February 1478 from the city council of Lübeck to Mentelin and Rusch asking for the return of a manuscript of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum doctrinale which had been loaned to them. Since this must relate to the unsigned edition of that work printed in the R-Press type 2 (Goff V-278=V-279), a type which includes capital sorts from R-Press type 1, it can be assumed that both types were used by Mentelin and Rusch in partnership. Based on the datable use of the paper stocks found in R-Press type 1 royal folios, Paul Needham has argued that these editions cannot be dated earlier than ca. 1473 (cf. Doheny I, 16). The terminus ante quem for the Plutarch is provided by the date of 1477 in the Tegernsee copy (cf. BSB-Ink.). In the present copy, most of the titles are printed, but a few have been supplied as rubrics. HC 13124; BMC I, 62 (IC. 647-648); BSB-Ink. P-625; CIBN P-490; Harvard/Walsh 69; M. Pade, "The Latin Translations of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth Century Italy and Their Manuscript Diffusion," in The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. C. Leonardi and B. Munk Olsen, Spoleto 1995, pp. 169-183; Goff P-831. (2)

Details

PLUTARCHUS (ca. 45-ca. 120). Vitae parallelae, translated from Greek into Latin by Franciscus Philelphus, Johannes Tortellius, Lapus Biragus, Donatus Acciaiuolus, Antonius Pacinus, Guarinus Veronensis, Leonardus Brunus, Franciscus Barbarus, Leonardus Justinianus, Alamannus Rinuccinus and Jacobus Angelus de Scarperia. - Donatus ACCIAIUOLUS (1429-1478). Vita Hannibalis. -Vita Scipionis Africani. -Vita Caroli Magni. - CORNELIUS NEPOS (ca. 100-ca. 25 B.C.). Vita Titi Pomponii Attici. - Leonardus BRUNUS ARETINUS (1369-1444). Vita Ciceronis. -Vita Aristotelis. - AELIUS DONATUS (fl. 4th century). Vita Virgilii. - GUARINUS VERONENSIS (1374-1460). Vita Platonis. - HERODOTUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. -- PLUTARCHUS (pseudo-). Vita Homeri, translated from Greek into Latin by Peregrinus Allius. - ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.). Evagoras, translated from Greek into Latin by Guarinus Veronensis. - XENOPHON (ca. 428-ca. 354 B.C.). Agesilaos, translated from Greek into Latin by Baptista Guarinus. - FESTUS (fl. late 4th century). Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani. Edited by Johannes Antonius Campanus (1429-1477). [Strassburg: The R-Press (Adolf Rusch and Johann Mentelin), between 1473 and 1477].

2 volumes, royal 2o (390 x 275 mm). Collation: [112 210 38 4-1310 148 15-2610 278 2810; 2910 3012 31-4010 416 42-5210] ([Vol. I]blank, 1/2r editor's dedication to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, table, 1/3r preface by Francesco Filelfo to Plutarch's life of Theseus, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo, life of Hannibal, blank; [Vol. II] preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Nicias, preface by Guarino Guarini to the life of Dion, preface by Leonardo Bruni, life of Cicero, preface by Donato Acciaiuolo to the life of Demetrius,v blank). 514 leaves. 49 lines. Type 1:103R. 8-line initial spaces, a few of four or five lines, some with printed guide- letters. Carefully executed Lombard initials in red or blue, many with elegant void ornamentation, paragraph signs in red or blue, capitals slashed in red. Rubrics, running titles, and foliation supplied in red. Manuscript signatures and catchwords, some manuscript guide letters. Notes for rubricator visible in margins. (Occasional smudges from the print shop, small losses to ca. 6 blank margins, detached and laid down inside back cover of vol. 1, 30/5.8 disjoint, first line of 51/2v imperfectly inked.)

Binding: contemporary Louvain binding of blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each cover divided by quadruple fillets into a blank frame and a central panel, the latter tooled with triple fillets to a saltire pattern, the intersections of fillets marked by a small star in a circle, each compartment filled with a single tool, either a wyvern in a square frame or a rectangle containing a bird and a bow-and-arrow with four stars and the letters "ve", the two central lozenges of each cover with the bust of a young man with long hair and a cap, the mark of JOHN OF WESTPHALIA or the binder who worked for him (Goldschmidt 25, cf. also 26), preserving a number of deckle edges, brass edge and corner protectors to tail edges of volumes, remains of two clasps to each volume, original manuscript label on vellum under horn with brass frame mounted on front cover of each volume (scuffed with occasional loss of leather, discreet repair to front cover of vol. 1, rebacked, free endpapers renewed).

Provenance: contemporary marginalia, including emendations to text -- Johannes Moeselaer (d. 1499), bachelor of theology and regent of the Paedogogium castri, one of the four divisions of the arts faculty at Louvain University, rector of the university in 1482: inscription (see below), his bequest to -- Herent (near Louvain), Augustinian Canons of Bethleem: partially deleted inscription, I (Pertinet volumen istud Monasterio Canonicorum Regularium in Bethleem iuxta Lovanium ex legato Honorabilis viri Magistri Johannis Moeselaer facultatis Theologie Bachalarii formati ac regentis Louanii in pedagogio Castri ...) -- erased inscription on first text leaf of each volume -- Burton Library, the Right Hon. Lord Monson: engraved armorial bookplates; sale, Sotheby's, 19 June 1951, lot 353 -- [Eric Speeckaert] -- [Lathrop Harper]

Second edition. The text of this edition was set from that of the first edition, printed by Ulrich Han in Rome, ca. 1470-71. Whereas the present edition has printed headings, these were lacking in Han's edition, which, however, is superior in its rendering of proper names. Plutarch's Lives were 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 exercize of translating from them into Latin. The Lives also appealed to humanists because of the information they provided about personalities and events of Antiquity, and in Florence they were regarded with particular interest because they provided early evidence for the city's long history as a republic. Most of the translations printed here were produced in the first half of the 15th century by Italian humanists and had circulated separately in manuscript before they were collected, with similar works, for Ulrich Han's edition. Giovanni Antonio Campano, bishop of Cortone and Teramo, an orator and historian, was a friend of Pope Pius II, whose Commentaries he read and corrected, and of Pius' nephew, Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, later Pope Pius III, to whom he dedicated his edition of Plutarch. In 1469-70 Campano worked as editor and corrector for the press of Ulrich Han.

The identification of the "R-Printer" as Anton Rusch, in partnership with his father-in-law Johann Mentelin, is derived from a letter of 18 February 1478 from the city council of Lübeck to Mentelin and Rusch asking for the return of a manuscript of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum doctrinale which had been loaned to them. Since this must relate to the unsigned edition of that work printed in the R-Press type 2 (Goff V-278=V-279), a type which includes capital sorts from R-Press type 1, it can be assumed that both types were used by Mentelin and Rusch in partnership. Based on the datable use of the paper stocks found in R-Press type 1 royal folios, Paul Needham has argued that these editions cannot be dated earlier than ca. 1473 (cf. Doheny I, 16). The terminus ante quem for the Plutarch is provided by the date of 1477 in the Tegernsee copy (cf. BSB-Ink.). In the present copy, most of the titles are printed, but a few have been supplied as rubrics.

HC 13124; BMC I, 62 (IC. 647-648); BSB-Ink. P-625; CIBN P-490; Harvard/Walsh 69; M. Pade, "The Latin Translations of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth Century Italy and Their Manuscript Diffusion," in The Classical Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. C. Leonardi and B. Munk Olsen, Spoleto 1995, pp. 169-183; Goff P-831. (2)

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