Beschreibung:

PLATO] SERRANUS=SERRES, JEAN DE-trans. [Greek text] Platonis Opera quae extant omnia ... [Paris or Geneva]: Henri Estienne [II], 1578. First complete edition of this major recension of the text. Three volumes, 17th century brown calf, all edges sprinkled red. [18] ff., 542 pp.; [8 ff.], 992 pp.; [4] ff., 416, 134 pp. Joints starting, somewhat rubbed and scuffed but the set presents well; the first volume with persistent pale staining in the lower quarter, occasional lesser staining in the second and third. The title of the third volume is partially defective and rebacked, and almost certainly from another copy. Bookplates of Roger Cole Esq. in each volume. This edition, which contained a newly established Greek text, was collated from manuscripts and earlier editions of Plato by Estienne himself, and contains a new Latin translation by Jean de Serres (a student at Calvin's Academy in Geneva) which Estienne himself revised and corrected. This was the definitive edition for the study of Plato for the subsequent two centuries. 'Of all Henri Estiennes' publications the Plato is perhaps the most lavishly decorated: besides numerous woodcut initials, culs-de-lampe, and a striking elaborate title-device, it is the only publication in which Estienne used his entire series of decorative headpieces. Although this sumptuous Plato further contributed to Estienne's financial ruin it is also (after the Thesaurus) the work which most contributed to his fame' (Schreiber p.170). Adams P1439; Schreiber 201. C