1. Plutarch, Virorum illustrium vitae Plutarch wrote the lives of 46 Greek and Roman philosophers and politicians, using the method known as 'parallel lives'. Each Roman was paired with a Greek for a better comparison, according to the similarities in character and biography. The work existed in various partial translations in Latin before 1450, but a complete translation was composed by Giovanni Anotonio Campano around 1470. The first printer in Venice was a German, Johannes de Spira (d.1470) whose first book was printed in 1469. Spira was closely followed by a French printer, Nicholaus Jenson (c.1435-80), who started printing in 1470 and remained in business until his death. Jenson printed editions of the Classics in folio format, using a beautiful Roman type. His folio editions had ample margins which provided the arena for lavish decoration and illumination by contemporary artists, as we can witness in some of the extant copies of Jenson's Plutarch, including those on vellum. The Keio copy [1] is a modest example on paper in comparison with some of the vellum copies, but the opening page is beautifully decorated with a large and elaborate initial 'Q' and the heraldic device of Francesco Chieregati (1478-1539), Bishop of Teramo in the Kingdom of Naples. Such a mark of ownership on the first page was a common practice, as can also be seen in the 1487 edition of Dante in the Keio collection (no.53).
IJL, 243; Keio, PTP, 95; Keio, Treasures, 24 Alexander, Jonathan J.G., ed., The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450-1550 (München, 1994)
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