Les vies des hommes illustres grecs & romains

Paris : Michel de Vascosan, 1559. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. [Editio princeps of Amyot's translation Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.] Thick folio, 36.3 x 25 x 4.4 cm. Bound in contemporary mottled calf. Some restoration work to joints. All edges red. Collated: [8], 734, [26] leaves. Historiated initials, printers devices. First few leaves have marginal worming. Early signature of Doni Le Royer (sp?). <br> First edition of Plutarch's Lives by the scholar Jacques Amyot (1513-1593). Amyot was the teacher of Charles IX and Henri II, and famous as a Greek translator. - Mortimer. It is one of the masterpieces of French Renaissance prose - Montaigne called it "nostre breviaire." Amyot's French version was translated into English by Sir Thomas North (1535-1604) and soon became "Shakespeare's Plutarch", a major source for his Roman and Greek plays (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens). <br> Refs. Pettegree FB 44084. Cioranescu 2484. STCFrench (BL London) 359. Adams P1620. Hoffmann III, p. 384. [Parallel Lives] <br> This is an oversized or heavy book, which requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US.