8vo. 2 volumes: (XXXII),1181,(47 index);1294,(34 index) p. New vellum. 18.5 cm (Ref: cf. Hoffmann 3,214) (Details: Small woodcut portrait of Plutarch on both titles. Every 'Vita' is preceded by a coinlike woodcut portrait) (Condition: The first letter of several lines on both titles disappears in the left margin, because of new endpapers which have been attached to a small paper repair in the gutter. Edges of both titles thumbed. Some stains on the front edge of vol. I. Outer margin of the title and the first gathering of the first volume stained. Paper slightly yellowing) (Note: The 'Vitae Parallelae' or 'Parallel Lives', form a collection of biographies of ancient historical figures. There are 23 pairs, 19 of them with a comparison attached to it. The object of Plutarch was not to write history, but to exemplify private virtue and vice in the careers of great men. Hence his careful treatment of education and character, and his love for anecdotes. 'Tantalizing and treacherous to the historian, Plutarch has won the affection of the many generations to whom he has been a main source of understanding of the ancient world by his unerring choice of detail, his vivid and memorable narrative, and his flexible and controlled style, varying in complexity and richness'. (OCD, 2nd. ed. p. 849) The 'Lives', in Greek, Latin and other translations were for centuries compulsory classic reading for educated people. Many authors, playwrights, painters drank from this source. § The French humanist Jacques Amyot, 1513-1593, was one of the most famous and influential translators of the Renaissance. Allthough the son of poor parents he was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Bourges. He even became bishop of Auxerre. He first translated into French the romance of Heliodorus (1547). In 1554 his translation of the historian Diodorus Siculus was published, and in 1559 the 'Daphnis and Chloë' of Longus. From 1559 till 1565 he worked on his famous translation 'Vies Parallèles des Hommes Illustres' of the Greek historian/philosopher Plutarch (ca. 50 - ca. 120 A.D.). For his translations he visited the Bibliotheca Vaticana and the libraries of Venice to study Greek codices. The translation of the 'Vitae Parallelae' is Amyot's greatest success, and ranks among the most admired works of the French Renaissance, both for its new standards of scholarship and for the perceived elegance of its style. The list of reissues and reprints seems endless. His translation was again translated into Dutch and English. Especially the English translation by Thomas North, 1535-1604, was influential, because it formed the source from which Shakespeare drew the material for his Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. It is in the last-named play that he follows the Lives most closely, whole speeches being taken directly from North. § An expanded edition of Amyot's French translation was published in 1587 by one S.G.S. 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). This S.G.S. is the French calvinist minister Simon Goulard (Senlisien), born in 1543 in Senlis (Oise). (See (www.)idref.fr/026898411) 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) § This French edition of 'Vies des hommes illustres' of 1612 is a page-for-page reissue of the edition of 1594, which was published in Geneva by Jacq. Stoer) (Collation: â8, ê8; A-4G8, 4H8 (minus leaf 4H7 & 4H8); A-4O8) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)