Oeuvres morales et meslees. Translatées de grec en français, reveues & corrigées en plusieurs passages par le translateur

The first edition of Amyot's translation dates from 1572 published by Michel de Vascosan in Paris.
Contemporary full calf binding, spine with six raised bands, 6 fleurons, double fillet frame on boards.
Jacques Amyot (1513-1594), was tutor to the sons of Henri II (future Charles IX and Henri III), he was also professor at the University of Bourges and became grand almoner of France and bishop of Auxerre, which he made an important center of humanism. It was on the recommendation of François I that he translated Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men. This work, and subsequently the moral works, had and would have considerable impact, not only for the rediscovery of antiquity (which thus had greater resonance than for a few scholars) and of Plutarch but for the French language itself. Montaigne wrote: 'We others, ignorant, were lost if this book had not lifted us from the mire... It is our breviary'. But not only a skilled translator concerned with accuracy, he is also a very able popularizer rather than a scholar, for he wrote for a broad public and not for the learned, thus he explains, comments on what needs to be clarified, he seeks a pure French, removed from Hellenisms and pedantic turns, a French that would be praised by all specialists of the French language in the 17th century such as Vaugelas. Finally, he brought translation into a new era.
Brunet, IV, 738.
Skillful restorations to corners, headcaps and edges.