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Christmas Special / Antique Books, Autographs and Prints

Thursday 11 December 2025 e Friday 12 December 2025, 03:00 PM • Rome

78

Letteratura

Alighieri, Dante

(Firenze 1265 - Ravenna 1321)

Comedy by Dante Alighieri divine poet: with the exposition of Christophoro, 1529

Estimate

€ 1.500 - 3.000

Sold

€ 2.064

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Venice, Iacopo del Burgofranco of Pavese, at the request of the noble lord Lucantonio Giunta of Florence, 1529. On 2nd page. Title page printed in red and black within an architectural frame depicting the Muses at the base and five great Latin and five Italian poets on either side (the same frame, however, with only Latin poets in the side columns, frames the first large woodcut that opens the Inferno). At the bottom center is a red Florentine lily. On the verso of the title page is the famous and beautiful portrait of Dante, two other large woodcuts are placed at the beginning of Purgatory and Paradise while each individual canto bears a smaller woodcut illustration at the beginning. Ink marks, browning and some pages are slightly trimmed. Modern red half-leather binding with wooden boards.

Specialist Notes

This exquisite edition is universally renowned for its large portrait of Dante, the first to appear in an edition of the Divine Comedy. The work of an anonymous Venetian master, it was based on the much smaller portrait found in the 1521 edition of the Amoroso convito. This illustration shaped the poet's physiognomy, both among contemporaries and later generations. The text is based on the 1502 Aldine edition, but is accompanied by Landino's classic commentary. The iconographic apparatus, inspired by Botticelli, is taken from the 1491 Capcasa Venetian edition, and several of the printer's matrices were also used to create it. Mortimer, 145; Mambelli, Gli annali delle edizioni dantesche, no. 28; Camerini, 328.

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