Dante Early Printed : Incominciano le cantiche de la Comedia di Dante Alleghieri firentino. Cantica prima delo Inferno

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321

Dante Early Printed

<p style='text-align: justify;'>The second edition to be printed in 1477, this book was produced in Naples by the so-called ‘Printer of Dante’. The text is in a large, round roman type, printed in a single column with brief introductory rubrics for each of the three cantiche (also referred to in this edition as tractate and parti). Short titles announce the start of each canto, here, rather confusingly, referred to as cantiche. The layout is consistent throughout the edition and all the titles are in capital letters, as are the first initials of each terzina. This neat printing is not disturbed by the fact that blank spaces are left (without guide letters) at the start of each poetic sections, presumably intended for the later inclusion of decorative initials, a common practice in early printed books. In some copies, woodblock capitals have been stamped into the capital spaces (see Bibliothèque Nationale (France), Catalogue des incunables, D-10; and Pell [Pellechet, Catalogue général des incunables des bibliothèques publiques de France] 4110A, volume 3, page 97).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>In the Rylands copy, leaves <a dir='auto' href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>a2r–a4v</a> and <a dir='auto' href='' onclick='store.loadPage(459);return false;'>gg5r–gg6v</a> are palimpsests with the printed part of the page inlaid on a different sheet. Like all the other leaves, these are ruled in red. In his description of this copy for the catalogue of the Spencer Library, Dibdin notes: ‘the first four leaves (especially the third) are of a sombre tint, and inlaid, and a worm has committed sad ravages upon some ten or a dozen of the last 22 leaves’ (see Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Bibliotheca Spenceriana (Shakspeare Press, 1823) volume 7, page 44 (number 68)).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The copy in the Rylands was acquired by the Duke of Cassano from the Seminary at Fiesole with the assistance of Angelo Maria Pannocchieschi, Marchese d'Elci, (1751–1824), connoisseur collector of editiones principes (see Vincenzo Trombetta, Collezionismo e bibliofilia a Napoli tra Sette e Ottocento (Macerata, 2020), page 29). Luigi Serra di Cassano sold his entire library to the 2nd Earl Spencer in 1819/20 (see the list of Cassano's incunabula by the Neapolitan bookseller Gabriele Stasi, Catalogo dell'edizioni del sec. xv esistenti nella biblioteca del Duca di Cassano Serra (Naples, 1807), page 46). This book was acquired in 1892 by Enriqueta Rylands (1843-1908) from John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer (1835-1910), for The John Rylands Library.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>In the catalogue of his library, the Duke di Cassano (former owner of the Rylands edition) identified the printer of this edition as Matthias Moravus. The twentieth-century Historian, Cecil Roth, meanwhile attributed it to a Jewish printer and saw it as proof of ‘close connection between Jewish and non-Jewish printing and printers in Naples’ (see Roth, ‘A Jewish painter in Naples, 1477’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, volume 39 (1956): pages 188–199).</p>