This is an early edition of the comedies of the Roman dramatist Plautus. His plays were first performed in the second century BC, and now represent the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature. This edition also provides the commentary of the Bolognese humanist Giovanni Battista Pio (1460-1543), which has been printed surrounding the main text.

Binding description
Seventeenth-century red goatskin, decorated with gilt fillets to form a border and central panel with gilt tools at the corners with the cipher of Charles II (a crowned pair of addorsed Cs between pair of palm fronds); gilt rolls on board edges. Spine with six raised bands, decorated with gilt tools (Charles’ II ciphers on each panel) and titling, including the initials "I.M." (i.e. John Morris) at the tail, which were added when the book was presented to the nation with the rest of the Old Royal Library in 1757. Textblock trimmed and gilted. Endpapers of plain paper; printed waste visible below pastedowns.