Dante Early Printed : Comincia la Comedia di dante alleghieri di fiorenze nella q[ua]le tracta delle pene et punitioni de uitii et demeriti et...

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321

Dante Early Printed

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The first edition of the Commedia in print, this book was produced in Foligno by Johann Neumeister, a former employee of Gutenberg, and Evangelista [Angelini?] ‘adi cinque et sei’ [i.e. 11 Apr. 1472]. Presented in folio, the edition uses a rounded, roman typeface thought to have been designed by Emiliano Orfini. The poem is printed in a single column format and each canto (referred to in the edition as a capitolo) is preceded by a short narrative summary that acts as a rubric to the text. These rubrics are elongated at the start of each cantica (or parte) with a short summary of the relevant realm. The canti are separated by a blank line and lack opening initial capitals, for which spaces are provided, probably intended for later hand decoration. All three cantiche begin at the top of a new page and the text layout is uniform throughout the edition, giving it a neatly consistent page design. The edition concludes with a six-line verse colophon that contains the publication details. The text itself is taken from the so-called Dante ‘del cento’, a group of Florentine manuscripts (see Dante poeta e italiano «legato con amore in un volume». Manoscritti e antiche stampe della raccolta di Livio Ambrogio, Catalogue number 19, page 32).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The Rylands copy was donated to the Convento di San Domenico in Fermo in 1546, then passed into the Crevenna collection, then the Spencer collection, before being bought by Enriqueta Rylands for the library in 1892. Although innovatively printed in movable type, the first page of the Rylands copy shows hand-decoration and gilding reminiscent of manuscript production, still the prevalent book form at this time. </p>