Dante Alighieri

Danthe alighieri fiorentino [Divina Commedia with the commentary by Cristoforo Landino]

      Pietro Quarengi, Venice 1497 - SIXTH ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF LA DIVINA COMMEDIA, AND THE LAST 15TH CENTURY EDITION. "Edizione rara assai e molto apprezata per le belle incisioni in legno." (Olschki LXXV, 21). BINDING, COLLATION, ETC: FOLIO. Textblock measures 287 x 200 mm. In attractive full morocco gilt binding circa 1850. Both boards with elaborate center-pieces of floral and 'drawer-handle' motifs within tooled double borders. Flat spine richly tooled in compartments, lettered "DANTE / S.T." (?) and "1497" at foot. Gilt dentelles to board edges. Endpapers renewed. Foliation: [10], [II] - CCXCVII leaves (forming 612 pages). Signature collation: a10, 2a-z8 &8 A-K8 L-M10 N6 [-2a1, -N6]. Lacking the final (unnumbered) leaf N6 (blank, except for the registrum on recto), and leaf 2a1 (blank recto, full-page woodcut on verso), which is supplied in good facsimile. Otherwise complete, with all the text and all 99 in-text woodcuts present. Printed in Roman letter. Text of La Commedia surrounded by Landino's commentary. Printed marginal notes. 46 lines of text and 60-61 lines of commentary to a page. Ninety-nine woodcuts in text. First page of Inferno within woodcut ornamental borders of four blocks. Over two-hundred white-on-black decorative initials. Capital spaces, with guide letters. Colophon on N5r. The Italian versions of Credo, Pater Noster and Ave Maria, supposititiously attributed to Dante, are included at the end of the volume, after the colophon (leaf N5r,v). Preliminaries include Landino's introduction and Life of Dante, as well as Ficino's preface Ad Dantem gratulatio on leaf a9r,v. CONDITION: Good. Binding slightly rubbed but with leather and gilt very fresh and well-preserved. Endpapers renewed. Occasional light staining and or soiling to some leaves. Title page considerably soiled and browned, with numerous ownership inscriptions and signatures of various periods, and with about 2cm of blank margin at the bottom clipped off (no loss of text). Marginal repairs to leaves a1, a2 and 2a7 (the second preliminary leaf a2 with minor tears, repaired with loss to several words of the Introduction). Leaf r3 with a piece at the bottom outer corner torn off with some loss of text to the commentary, the Dante's text being intact. A short tear at top of leaf N1 repaired affecting a few words but with no loss of legibility. A small area at top outer corner of the last three leaves (N3,4,5) damaged and repaired with minor loss of text of the Commentary and the Credo. The outer margin cropped a bit closely, occasionally touching marginal notes on early leaves of Inferno. Generally, the text block is rather clean and unmarked, with strong bright impression of text and woodcuts, with the entire text of La Commedia perfectly legible, and all the 99 textual woodcuts are present and intact. ADDITIONAL NOTES: Although BMC states (erroneously) that this edition is "reprinted from M. Capcasa's 1493 edition, including the cuts and borders", Essling and Fiske both point out (correctly!) that the 99 woodcuts in text are, in fact, from the 18 Nov. 1491 Petrus Cremonensis edition, while the full-page cut at the beginning of Inferno is from the 3 Mar. 1491 Capcasa edition, and the decorative woodcut border surrounding the text of the first page of Inferno is from the 1493 Capcasa edition. REFERENCES: Goff D-35; Hain 5945 (= Hain/Copinger 5953); BMC V, 513; Proctor 5482; GW 7972; BSB-Ink D 11; IGI 366; Polain 1227; Rhodes (Oxford Colleges) 655; Walsh 2492; Bod-inc D-018; Sheppard 4451; Essling 534; Sander 2316; Fiske 6; De Batines I, p.57-59; Zambrini col.317. [Attributes: Hard Cover]