Sophocles. Tragoediae VII, collation: A-Z⁸, a-e^8, 431, [17] pp., complete with final blank, Greek, Roman and italic type, text in Greek, woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut decorated initials and tailpieces, printed maniculae, slightly spotted in places, minor loss to lower outer corner of fol. B2, some bibliographic notes on verso of front silk flyleaf, later blue straight-grain morocco by Thouvenin, signed at foot of spine, covers framed by blind and gilt border, floral cornerpieces, spine with four raised bands, compartments decorated in gilt, gilt tooled cover edges, inner dentelles, pastedowns and flyleaves lined with pale powder beige silk, additional parchment and paper flyleaves, pale pink silk bookmark, gilt edges, 16mo, 114 x 77mm., Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1579.

⁂ The seven Sophocles tragedies published at the sign of 'The Golden Compas' by the famous printer Christopher Plantin and set in the elegant Greek font drawn and cut for the Antwerp printing house by the Lyonnese type-cutter Robert Granjon. The Latin colophon is dated 1580.

The text was edited on the basis of the materials and notes discovered by Plantin among the papers of the Dutch philologian Willem Canter (1542-1575). "The merits of Plantin are very considerable; for it is to him that we are indebted for the present form of the arrangement of the Plays" (T. F. Dibdin, An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek, p. 364). The Plantin Press published a second edition of Sophocles in 1593.

This copy is in a fine morocco binding by the renowned Joseph Thouvenin, a pupil of François Bozerian le jeune, whose name was immortalised by Balzac and Stendhal. The signature 'R.[elié] P.[ar] Thouvenin' appeared on bindings produced before 1820; after this date, it became, as in this copy, simply 'Thouvenin'.

Provenance: A late 19th-century donorship inscription in Greek on recto of front paper flyleaf.