In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321.

Danthe Alighieri fiorentino.

Impressa in Venetia: Per Piero de Zuanne di Quarengii da Palazago Bergamasco, del. M.CCCC.LXXXXVII. Adi. XI. octubrio. [11 Oct. 1497].

Renaissance editions of Dante were plentiful, and typically featured, as this edition does, Dante’s text surrounded by extensive commentary. Cristoforo Landino (1424-1504) of Florence was the most famous fifteenth-century commentator of Dante. Chair of Rhetoric and Poetry at the university in Florence, he wrote commentary on Classical authors and on Dante under the patronage of the Medici family. Between 1481 and 1596, Landino's commentary on Dante would be printed in sixteen editions. Landino's work synthesized the most important fourteenth-century Dante commentaries, and reflects the Neo-Platonism that characterized the scholars of Florence. He extols Dante's work as equaling the finest of Classical texts ("vero imitatore di Virgilio") but regards it as superior in doctrine. This edition features the lovely woodcuts first seen in the Venice edition published by Matteo Capcasa in 1493.

 

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