Plutarchus, Parallela, Venice, Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, August 1519, Venetian dark brown goatskin, alla greca, ca. 1520

Plutarchus. Ploutarchou Parallela en biois Ellenonte kai Romaion Plutarchi quae vocantur Parallela. Hoc est vitae illustrium virorum Graeci nominis ac Latini, prout quaequae alteri conuenire videbatur, digestae [Greek]. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, August 1519

First Aldine edition of the Greek text and the second overall, following the edition printed by Filippo Giunta in Florence, 27 August 1517. "Aldus Manutius printed Plutarch's Moralia in 1509, but this 1519 edition is the first Aldine edition to include the Greek text of his Parallel Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans. In his prefatory dedication to Pietro Bembo, Gian Francesco Torresano observes that 'just as farmers produce fruit, so it is only right that booksellers produce books'" (Grolier/Aldus).

This work is surprisingly scarce at auction: Rare Book Hub records only five copies since the present one last appeared more than forty years ago, none bound in the alla greca style.

Folio (310 x 205 mm). Greek type, with some Roman, 54 lines plus headline. collation: *⁴ aα–zψ⁸ aaαα–ttττ⁸ uuυυ¹⁰: 350 leaves (*4 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and uuυυ10v, eight-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Some scattered marginal staining and foxing, loss to fore-edge margin of nnνν1.)

binding: Venetian alla greca binding (312 x 209 mm), ca. 1520, blind-tooled dark brown goatskin over wooden boards, edges cut flush and grooved, raised headcaps, covers with blind rolls of foliate and scroll ornament surrounding central panel of a Maltese cross tool, smooth spine similarly ornamented in blind, four braided clasps (two fully intact, one detached) catching on front, plain endpapers, additional contemporary flyleaves at front and back, plain edges with title lettered in ink on lower edge. (Joints and extremities lightly worn with minor repair.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, nineteenth-century collation inscription "T.G." — Mark Pattison (1813–1884); his sale, Sotheby's London, 27 July–6 August 1885, lot 2869; purchased by — B. H. Blackwell, Oxford (£1 4s) — Oswald Thrale Perkins (d. 1939) — Francis James Rennell Rodd, 2^nd Baron Rennell (1895–1978) — Mary Constance Vivian Rodd (née Smith), Lady Rennell (1901–1981); her sale, Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London, 30 November 1983, lot 13 (₤13,750; designated "The Property of the Estate of the late Lady Rennell of Rodd"). acquisition: Purchased at Bloomsbury via Martin Breslauer, Inc. references: UCLA 182; Adams P1610; Cataldi Palau 49; Edit16 60587; Grolier/Aldus 71; Renouard 87/9; USTC 849958