FIRST EDITION , rare and sought-after, of the great Summa of medieval thought planned by Dante.
This philosophical and poetic treatise in the vernacular stands at the crossroads between Dante's youthful poetic experiences, which achieved results of notable formal refinement and complexity of content, and the compositional phase characterized by reflections on human events, in their historical-political articulation and their otherworldly significance. Beyond his poetic apprenticeship during his Florentine years, a further premise for the creation of the Convivio was his forced abandonment of civic engagement in favor of the city of Florence and his expulsion into exile, which strengthened the poet's desire for intellectual affirmation. The first edition, however, was published when interest in the work reached its peak in late fifteenth-century Florence. The treatise, although unfinished and abandoned by the author, is in fact part of the revival of Dante the lyric presented as a poet-theologian, according to the interpretation of Marsilio Ficino, and the work also lends itself to the nationalistic instances of exaltation of the Medici lordship, also evident in the prologue of the Commentary to Landino's Divine Comedy, notable also for its apologetic and propagandistic aspects. This revaluation of the Convivio materialized in September 1490 in the editio princeps of the treatise, printed in Florence by Francesco Bonaccorsi: this is a relatively early first edition if one considers that the princeps of Dante's Rime dates back to 1518 (Venice, Guglielmo Cerreto), that of the Monarchia to 1559 (Basel, Giovanni Oporino), while we had to wait until 1576 for the Vita Nova (Florence, Bartolomeo Sermatelli) and until 1577 for the De vulgari eloquentia (Paris, Jean Corbon), already published in Vicenza, in 1529, only in Trissino's translation. Goff D36; HC 5954; IGI 367; Pr 6309; BMC VI 673; BSB Ink D-12; GW 7973.