THE WORKS OF PLATO 1517 [PLATONIS OPERA] CONTEMPORARY FOLIO BINDING

[PLATO (427?-347 B.C.)]. Platonis Opera. Venetiis [Venice] a Philippo Pincio Mantuano hoc opus Impressum suit, Anno M.CCCCCXVII. Die, XXII, Aprilis.

Hardcover. Third Latin edition, edited by Marsilio Ficino. Printed in Venice by Filippo Pincio, 1517. Coeval leather-bound. Thick folio, 2º, (320 x 220 x 70mm), ff. (6), CCCLXXXIX, (1). Signatures: 1⁶ a-z⁸ &⁸ [con]⁸ [rum]⁸ A-Y⁸ Z⁶. [Z⁶ blank]. Leaves numbered on rectos. Divided into thirty-six sections with sections numbered on versos, titles in capitals. Initial and terminal blanks present. Latin text with some words in Greek. Roman letter in lines of 58. Original blind-stamped calf backed wooden boards, spine with three raised bands, remnants of leather clasps. Simple title-page printed in red. Woodcut diagrams in the text, spaces for capitals with guide letters, shoulder notes, eleven-line decorative initial beginning a¹ recto, colophon and register present at verso bottom of last printed leaf. Condition: Collated complete. Binding tight and secure. Some worm-trail to d1-k7. Occasional light browning and spotting, with minor intermittent water-staining. Occasional marginalia and underscoring in early hand. Wooden boards a little holed and scuffed at corners, else an excellent example. [Adams P 1442; BM, STC Italian 524; Schweiger I, 248].

Listing note: Third edition of Ficino's translation of Plato into Latin (derived from that printed by Bern. De Choris in 1491), considered to be the best up to the 19th century.