Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
[Venetia] In bibliotheca. Stagnino Bernardini, [1512]
[Impressa in Venetia per Miser Bernardino Stagnino da Trino de Monferra]
FIRST EDITION
Pietro, da Figino, active 15th century.
Contains the Divina Commedia with commentary by Landino, Cristoforo
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 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 (at the end)
“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
Leather bound.
Size 8 x 6 inches
Some wear to the binding , marginal loss and stains to title page and improves by page AA, last few leaves with damages and repairs, a few leaves with some wormtracks, lacks frontispiece.
Text in Italian (Tuscan/Florentine)
EXTREMELY RARE
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The Divine Comedy (1320) is among the most influential texts of world literature, whose impact on both the European religious and literary imagination is undeniable. Linguistically, Dante's (1265-1321) work is important as it is largely responsible for the standardization of the Tuscan/Florentine dialect as standard Italian. His use of allusion, symbolism, folklore, and history is rooted in both the classical tradition and Dante's own contemporary medieval world, resulting in a trove of medieval Italian thought and historical perspective.
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Bernado Stagnino "belonged to the distinguished Giolito de' Ferrari da Trino (Piedmont) family of printers, a family worthy of being considered alongside the Manutius family, if not for the correctness of their texts, then certainly for their long history in Renaissance publishing and printing. Yet Bernardino never used the family name, preferring the nickname "Stagnino" meaning "tinsmith." Around 1483 he moved from Trino to Venice and established a press under the sign of San Bernardino, and remained active there until his death in 1538."
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