Illuminated Copies of Plutarchus, Vitae Illustrium Virorum, Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1478: New Attributions, New Patrons*

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CHAPTER 5 Illuminated Copies of Plutarchus, Vitae illustrium virorum, Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1478: New Attributions, New Patrons*

Lilian Armstrong

The edition of Plutarch’s Vitae illustrium virorum printed in 1478 by Nicolaus Jenson, the most successful printer in Venice in the 1470s, emerged in a printing

* It is a privilege to participate in this volume honouring Jill Kraye to whom I am most grateful for her leadership as Librarian of the Warburg Institute, and for her important contribu- tions to the study of Renaissance Humanism. I also treasure her friendship. I wish to thank Margaret Meserve and Anthony Ossa-Richardson for their thoughtful and careful editing of this volume. I am grateful to Martin Davies who has advised me on numerous issues regard- ing patronage of the Plutarch edition. Thanks also to the Special Collections Librarians of the many libraries holding copies of the edition who have all been generous with their knowledge of individual books, and I am greatly indebted to them.

Abbreviations: BAV-Inc = Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Incunabula, ed. William J. Sheehan, C.S.B, 4 vols (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1997). BnF = Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bod-Inc = Alan Coates, Kristian Jensen, Cristina Dondi, et al., A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library, 6 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). BSB-Ink = Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog, 7 vols (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1988–2009). CIBN = Catalogue des incunables. Bibliothèque Nationale, 2 vols (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1981–2014). DBMI = Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani, ed. Milvia Bollati (Milan: Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004). Goff = Incunabula in American Libraries, ed. Frederick R. Goff (Millwood, NY: Kraus International Publications, 1973). IGI = Indice generale degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d’Italia, 6 vols (Roma: Libraria dello Stato, 1943–81). ISTC = Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/). MEI = Material Evidence in Incunabula (http://incunabula.cerl.org/cgi-bin/search.pl? lang=en).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��8 | doi ��.��63/9789004355323_006 70 Armstrong format that had ensured his success in the early 1470s.1 Large pages, handsome Roman type, text printed in a single block with generous margins, lines of text indented to provide room for hand-illumination, and several copies printed on vellum, all features that recall Jenson’s editions of classical texts between 1470 and 1474.2 Earlier Jenson editions had attracted wealthy buyers, and the surviv- ing copies of the 1478 Plutarch again reveal a wide range of patrons who prized hand-illumination by miniaturists working in the Veneto and elsewhere. A few of these copies are well known, but discussion of them in the context of other hitherto unpublished copies will expand our knowledge of printing history and artistic production in Renaissance Venice, as well as provide insights into the ownership of this important classical text.

Plutarch: Rome, 1470 and Venice, 1478

Although some of Plutarch’s Lives had been translated from Greek into Latin by around 1400, the earliest printed editions depend on translations made intermittently over the first half of the fifteenth century.3 The first edition of Plutarch was printed by Ulrich Han in Rome before April of 1470, edited by Giovanni Antonio Campano and dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini.4 For each of the sixty Lives, the name of the translator is given: Jacopo Angeli, Leonardo Bruni, Guarino da Verona, Francesco Barbaro, Leonardo Giustiniani, Antonio Pacini da Todi, Francesco Filelfo, Donato Acciaiuoli, Alamanno

1 Plutarchus, Vitae illustrium virorum, Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 2 January 1478 (ISTC ip00832000); see Appendix for a list of hand-illuminated copies; in the text these copies are indicated as ‘No. 1’, ‘No. 2’, etc. 2 On Nicolaus Jenson see Leonardas V. Gerulaitis, Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice (Chicago and London, 1976), 20–30; Martin Lowry, Nicholas Jenson and the Rise of Venetian Publishing in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, 1991); on the Plutarch specifically, see 121–123, and 247, in Appendix 3, no. 64. See also Lilian Armstrong, ‘The Hand-Illumination of Printed Books in Italy, 1465–1515’, in The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450–1550, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander (London and Munich, 1994), 35–47 (reprinted in Lilian Armstrong, Studies of Renaissance Miniaturists in Venice, 2 vols, London, 2003 [hereafter Studies], 2:489–523); and 163–208, cat. nos. 78–87, 89–102, 104. 3 Vito R. Giustiniani, ‘Sulle traduzioni latine delle “Vite” di Plutarco nel Quattrocento’, Rinascimento, ser. 2, 1 (1961), 4–59; Marianne Pade, The Reception of Plutarch’s Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2 vols (Copenhagen, 2007). 4 Plutarchus, Vitae illustrium virorum [Latin], [Rome]: Ulrich Han (Udalricus Gallus), [1470] (ISTC ip00830000). The only other edition preceding Jenson’s was Plutarchus, Vitae illustrium virorum, [Strassburg: The ‘R’ Printer (Adam Rusch), after 1470–1471] (ISTC ip00831000).