Folio. VI,548,(4) leaves. Calf 32 cm (Ref: STCN 141469102; Geerebaert 69,3, records this second edition of the first complete Dutch translation of 1603; OiN 310; Hoffmann 3,227; Graesse 5,365/66; Ebert 17507) (Details: Back gilt & with 6 raised bands. Unsigned engraved architectural frontispiece, depicting a chapel in a temple, in the niches of which stand 4 statues, one of them is Mercurius. The chapel is flanked by Romulus and Theseus, the founders of Rome and Athens; in the dome of the chapel is a portrait of Plutarchus. Woodcut printer's mark on the title, depicting a three-master on a rough sea, motto: 'Durate'. Woodcut initials at the beginning of a 'vita'. To some copies has been added after the title page 1 leaf with a dedication 'Aende Hoogh-Moghende Heeren, de Staten Generael' to the States General of the Dutch Republic. This copy doesnot have that dedication) (Condition: Head & foot of the spine partly worn away. Old leather repairs to the upper part of both joints. Upper joint and hinge cracking, but still strong. Leather repairs to 3 corners. 1 bumped corner grazed. Small hole in the leather of the lower board. Front endpapers renewed. Original front flyleaf preserved, but worn & with a fold. Margins of the frontispiece thumbed & slightly frayed. Some faint & small waterstains on the lower margin of ca. hundred leaves) (Note: This translation of 1644 is reissue of the first complete Dutch translation, originally published in 1603. § The Greek philosophic stylist Plutarchus of Chaeroneia, ca. 46-120 A.D., wrote numerous short treatises on ethics and philosophy. He is however best known as historian and biographer. Plutarch composed with his famous 'Vitae' (or Parallel Lives), written ca. 100-120 A.D., a work of timeless quality. His aim was not writing history, but biography, so his chief interest was in the characters of the heroes and villains he portrayed, never avoiding a good story. Plutarch exercised a very profound influence on Western civilisation. His 'Vitae' has been one of the most frequently and continuously read books of the Western tradition. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass. 2010, p. 747.) Treacherous to the historian, Plutarch has won however since the Renaissance the affection of the many generations to whom he has been a main source of understanding of the ancient world, that is, early modern Europe discovered the ancient world for a great part through Plutarch's eyes. The Lives could gain an enormous impact by providing later biographers and literary authors an outstanding model. It is very well known for example that authors like Montaigne, Corneille, Racine, Rousseau, Schiller and Shakespeare heavily drew upon the Lives. Until the 19th century the Lives were invoked as models of totalitarism, anticlericalism by supporters and opponents. 'The founders of American democracy were avid readers of Plutarch as well, and some laced their prose with evidence of that fact. Franklin and Hamilton, in particular, proclaimed their admiration for the Lives' (Idem, p. 749) § On the continent the 'Lives' were widely read in the French translation of the French humanist Jacques Amyot, 1513-1593, who was one of the most famous and influential translators of the Renaissance. Although the son of poor parents he was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Bourges. He even became bishop of Auxerre. From 1559 till 1565 he worked on his famous translation of the 'Vies Parallèles des Hommes Illustres'. For his translations he visited the 'Bibliotheca Vaticana' and the libraries of Venice to study Greek codices. His translation was considered by some to be so excellent that it even excelled the original Greek. 'Maer sal tot besluyt ghenoech sijn, alleen aen te roere, hoe dat M. Iacques Amyot s'conincx Raedt in dit groote werck sijnen swaren arbeyt zoo heeft besteedt, ende de oversettinge zoo wel getroffen, dat veele cloecke mannen meenen dat deselve den Griecxen text in cierlijckheydt overtreffet.' (Leaf 3* verso of the preface) § This Dutch translation was based on the French text which was reedited by the French calvinist minister, author and translator S.G.S., i.e. Simon Goulard Silvanectinus (from Senlis), 1547-1628. Goulard published an expanded edition of Amyot's French translation in 1587. He added translations of the 'vitae' of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, in the 16th century believed to be the work of Plutarch himself, but written by the 15th century imitator of Plutarch Donato Acciaiuoli (1470), and translated into French by the Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius, in French Charles de l'Écluse, (1561). Goulard also 'produced comparisons where these were missing in Plutarch as well as new Lives of Epaminondas and Philip, Dionysius and Augustus Caesar and Plutarch and Seneca'. (F. Manzini, 'Stendhal's Parallel Lives', Oxford etc. 2004, p. 37/38) § The title of this Dutch translation is more or less an adaptation of the French title page of the edition Paris 1592. The Dutch translation was made, the preface reveals, by A.V.Z.V. Nieuvelt, that is Adam van Zuylen van Nieuvelt, and was first published., posthumely, in 1603. This edition of 1644 is a line for line reedition of that translation. Van Zuylen van Nieuvelt also translated the 'Cyropaedia' of Xenophon, published in 1592. He is a fine example of the Renaissance soldier. He fought in the Eighty Years' War, the Dutch war of Independence, 1568-1648, against the Spaniards. In 1583 he was for a year baljuw (bailiff) of Schoonhoven, a small city just east of Rotterdam. Later he was captain of an infantery regiment of the son in law of William of Orange, Philips of Hohenlohe, fighting against the Spaniards in the East of the Netherlands. In 1580 Adam van Zuylen was wounded in the lost and forgotten battle of Hardenberg, where the troops of the young republic lost 1500 man. (See: members.home.nl/m.tettero/Watergeuzen/Hardenberg.htm) Later Van Zuylen campaigned in the province of Friesland, and in 1596 he took part in the defence of Hulst, a fortified city in Zeeland. There he was taken prisoner by the Spaniards. He died that same year. Still this soldier found time to translate 'Vies Parallèles des Hommes Illustres' of Amyot, and Machiavelli's 'Discorsi' and 'Il Principe' (also from the French). After his death the manuscript with the translation of Amyot's Plutarch came into the possession of the Leiden publishers Paedts and Bouwens, who decided to enlarge this work, and to adopt it to the highly successfull French Amyot edition, produced by Simon Goulart, which contained not only useful notes and some commentary, but also a kind of continuation, consisting of the biographies of a number of ancient generals and kings. These new additions were translated by an anonymous man of letters. 'Maer alle de voorverhaelde nieuwe byvoegselen van Simon Goulart, sijn ten jongsten verduytscht, zoo in gedicht als anders, by eenen anderen, wesende een liefhebber sijner moeder tale'. (Leaf. *3 verso of the preface) (Van der Aa, 13,393)) (Collation: *6, A-4Z6 (leaf 4Z6 verso blank) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)