Quarto. Sign. *, a-z, &, aa-zz, aaa-sss^8, ttt^6. 8 unnumbered preliminary leaves (sign * not included in register on p. 1050) containing title, dedicatory epistle of Aldus to Jacopo Antiquario, index, four couplets of Jerome Aleander, preface of the editor Demetrius Doukas (all except title and dedication in Greek); 1050 numbered pages of Greek text, final blank leaf with anchor on verso. The type is Aldus's fourth Greek font, 46 lines to the page, five- to eight-line spaces left for initials. The _semipagina_ (the equivalent of our _page_) to which the index directs the reader, shows that _pagina_ still had its older meaning _leaf_, and incidentally that the numbering of the page instead of the leaf was an innovation. The anchor and dolphin device, the symbol of the motto _Festina lente_, which first appeared in the Dante of 1502, is here in its first form, but of the larger size suitable for folios and enclosed in double lines, on the title-page without name, but on the last leaf with the addition ALDVS.MA.RO. Although on the evidence of the chain-lines and the water-mark technically a quarto, the volume on account of its unusual size was doubtless printed like a folio on half sheets. Renouard, p. 55. Firmin-Didot, p. 317. Plutarch's _Moralia_ belongs to that imposing series of first editions of the Greek classics which among all the services of Aldus Manutius to the revival of learning are perhaps his best title to enduring fame. When he set up his press in 1495 five in all, and but one, Homer, of the first rank, had been printed. When he died twenty years later his first editions outnumbered those of all his contemporaries put together, and the rank was even more significant than the number, for among them were included Aristotle, Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar and Demosthenes. The Plutarch was printed from MSS. still preserved in the library of St. Mark. The Greek type of Aldus was a new departure, based on the cursive or business handwriting of his day in distinction from the older book-hand which had served as the model for the first Greek fonts. It gained immediate popularity and for more than two hundred years, either directly or through fonts based upon it, dominated the Greek printing of Europe. At length, mainly because of the ligatures and contractions, it was supplanted by type of more open and regular forms. In 1508 Aldus took as partner his father-in-law, Andrea Torresano d'Asola, a Venetian printer who in 1480 had taken over the business of Nicolas Jenson. The imprint which had hitherto been _apud Aldum_ or _in aedibus Aldi_ now became _in aedibus Aldi et Andreae soceri_. After the death of Aldus in 1515 the press was conducted without change of name by the surviving partner until his own death in 1529.