Richard Pynson, a Norman by birth, established himself in London about 1490, taking over, as there is good reason to believe, the business of Machlinia, a printer of law books, for which his knowledge of Norman-French especially fitted him.  In 1508 he was made Printer to the King and in that year also he printed two books in roman type, the first use of that character in England.  He is known to have printed at least 371 books, a much smaller number than de Worde, but as a rule larger and more important books.  He is regarded as the best English printer of his time and the Liber Intrationum is one of his finest books.

Bound in red velvet, with silk linings and gilt edges.  Leaf 12-3/4 x 9-1/4 in.

From the Syston Park library, with the book-plate and monogram of Sir John Henry Thorold.

27.  PLUTARCHUS.  Moralia Graece.  Venetiis, in aedibus Aldi et Andreae
    soceri, 1509.

TITLE:  PLVTARCHI OPVSCVLA.  LXXXXII.  Index Moralium omnium, & eorum quae in ipsis tractantur, habetur in hoc quaternione.  Numerus autem Arithmeticus remittit lectorem ad semipagina_m_, ubi tractantur singula. [Aldine anchor]. P. 1050, COLOPHON:  Venetiis, in aedibus Aldi & Andreae Asulani Soceri. mense Martio.  M. D. IX. [Blank leaf with anchor on verso.]

Quarto.  Sign. *, a-z, &, aa-zz, aaa-sss^8, ttt^6. 8 unnumbered preliminary leaves (sign * not included in register on p. 1050) containing title, dedicatory epistle of Aldus to Jacopo Antiquario, index, four couplets of Jerome Aleander, preface of the editor Demetrius Doukas (all except title and dedication in Greek); 1050 numbered pages of Greek text, final blank leaf with anchor on verso.  The type is Aldus’s fourth Greek font, 46 lines to the page, five- to eight-line spaces left for initials.  The semipagina (the equivalent of our page) to which the index directs the reader, shows that pagina still had its older meaning leaf, and incidentally that the numbering of the page instead of the leaf was an innovation.  The anchor and dolphin device, the symbol of the motto Festina lente, which first appeared in the Dante of 1502, is here in its first form, but of the larger size suitable for folios and enclosed in double lines, on the title-page without name, but on the last leaf with the addition ALDVS.MA.RO.  Although on the evidence of the chain-lines and the water-mark technically a quarto, the volume on account of its unusual size was doubtless printed like a folio on half sheets.  Renouard, p. 55.  Firmin-Didot, p. 317.

Plutarch’s Moralia belongs to that imposing series of first editions of the Greek classics which among all the services of Aldus Manutius to the revival of learning are perhaps his best title to enduring fame.  When he set up his press in 1495 five in all, and but one, Homer, of the first rank, had been printed.  When he died twenty years later his first editions outnumbered those of all his contemporaries put together, and the rank was even more significant than the number, for among them were included Aristotle, Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar and Demosthenes.  The Plutarch was printed from MSS. still preserved in the library of St. Mark.