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Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Opere del Divino Poeta Danthe con svoi Comenti : Recorrecti et con ogne diligentia novamente in littera cvrsiva impresse. In bibliotheca S. Bernardini. [With the commentary of Cristoforo Landino.

[Venetia] In bibliotheca. S. Bernardini, [1512] {[Impressa in Venetia per Miser Bernardino Stagnino da Trino de Monferra]}              $9,800 ON HOLD

Quarto: 8×5 1/2 inches  ; [12], 441 leaves. Collation: AA12 (AA1 In very good facsimile  of the title) , a-z8, [et]8, aa-zz8, 2[et]8, [con]8, [rum]8, A-E8

FIRST STAGNINO EDITION

There are a few contemporary annotations  by several hands throughout.  Endpapers renewed.

This copy is bound in a strange but interesting binding of modern manufacture.It is Bound in brown full leather with an inlayed white material carved image of ‘Danthe’ beset by the lion, leopard and wolf!

The book is illustrated with a full-paged woodcut of Dante with three scenes (1. wandering in the “selva oscura”, 2. beset by the lion, leopard and wolf, and 3. led by Vergil.) The poems are illustrated with 98 smaller woodcuts. In addition to the woodcuts that illustrate the text, there is a vignette of Adam & Eve, God, and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden that appears on the title page and again in the woodcut border on the first leaf of the Inferno. A woodcut of St. Bernardino of Siena also appears on the title. There are woodcut initials throughout. Title page printed in red and black.  Some of the woodcuts are signed C or with a small column with or without initials PF or CC.

The woodcuts “differ from those used in earlier editions yet show unmistakable traces of those of 1491.”(Fiske Catalogue, p. 7). The text surrounded with commentary./ Italic type (Proctor 12359); 51 lines of commentary partially surrounding text.

This edition has the  commentary of Cristoforo Landino (1424-98) His Dante commentary was presented to the city with great fanfare in a public ceremony in 1481, and with corrections to both the Landino commentary and the text of the Commedia by Pietro da Figino (Pietro Mazzanti da Figline).  In addition to the Commedia, this edition includes Dante’s Italian verse paraphrases of the Pater Noster, Ave Maria and the Creed.

“Dante’s theme, the greatest yet attempted in poetry, was to explain and justify the Christian cosmos through the allegory of a pilgrimage. To him comes Virgil, the symbol of philosophy, to guide him through the two lower realms of the next world, which are divided according to the classifications of the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle. Hell is seen as an inverted cone with its point where lies Lucifer fixed in ice at the centre of the world, and the pilgrimage from it is a climb to the foot of and then up the Purgatorial Mountain. Along the way Dante passes Popes, Kings and Emperors, poets, warriors and citizens of Florence, expiating the sins of their life on earth. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise where Beatrice meets them and Virgil departs. Dante is now led through the various spheres of heaven, and the poem ends with a vision of the Deity. The audacity of his theme, the success of its treatment, the beauty and majesty of his verse, have ensured that his poem never lost its reputation. The picture of divine justice is entirely unclouded by Dante’s own political prejudices, and his language never falls short of what he describes.” PMM

“Edizione rara e molto stimata… fu intitolata ‘Opere’ probabilmente perché contenente il Credo, il Pater Nostro, e l’Ave Maria parafrasati in versi Italiani da Dante.”(Colomb De Batines, I, pp. 78-9)

Adams D 90; Mambelli, Annali delle Edizioni Dantesche, no. 27; Colomb De Batines, Indice generale della Bibliografia dantesca I, 78; Sander, Le livre à figures italien, depuis 1467 jusqu’a 1530, 2325; Essling, Les livres à figures Vénitiens de la fin du xve siècle et du commencement du xvie, 529.

Fisk:Opere del divino poeta Danthe con svoi conienti : recorrecti et con ogne diligentia novamente in littera cvrsiva impresse.Atend: Fine del comento di Christoforo Landino Fiorètino sopra la Comedia di Danthe poeta excellentissimo reuista & emédata ditigetenmente p el rcuerédo maestro Pietro da Figino … & ha posto molte cose in din ersi luoghi che ha truouato mancare si in lo texto eòe nella giosa etià nouiter per altri excellenti huoT. Impressa in Venetia per Miser Bernardino stagnino da Trino de monferra. Del. M.CCCCC.XII. Adi. xxiiii. Nouembrio. 8°. ff. (12) + 441. Wdcts. 1012 B 6

At the end are the Credo, Pater nostro, and Ave Maria of Dante. The woodeuts are a full-page cut at the beginnìng of the Inferno, mie at the bottoni of the first page of the Inferno, in which depicts the figures Octaviano and Sibiìia, small ones at the head of each canto (differing from the cuts in the earlier editions, yet showing unmistakable traces of those of 1491), with a vignette of St. Bernard and a woodcut of Adam and Ève on the tùie-page. These illustrations are reprinted in the edition of 1520, except that there the wr.odcut of Adam and Ève is repeated on the first pair of the Inferno, and the vignette on the title-page is smaller and reversed.

Bandini, Angelo Maria. Specimen literaturae Florentinae saeculi XV in quo dum Christophori Landini gesta enarrantur virorum ea aetate doctissimorum in literariam remp. 2 vols. Florence: Rigaccius, 1747–1751.

“Edizione rara e molto stimata.” — Colonib de Batines, i.78.

Harvard University Bulletin, Volume 4, Justin Winsor : Harvard University. Library. 1887

Please don’t look :  Iconografia Dantesca: The Pictorial Representation to Dante’s Divine Comedy By Ludwig Volkmann, Charles Sarolea 1899.