[RENAISSANCE BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS]. Comedia di Dante Aligieri con la nova espositione di Alessandro Vellutello

Venice: Francesco Marcolini for Alessandro Vellutello, 1544. First edition thus. Very good. 4to. AA-BB8 CC10 A-Z8 AB-AZ8 BC-BI8 = 442 ff., COMPLETE with integral final blank. An early issue, without the ink-stamp (textual correction) on fol. V7. Illustrations: 87 woodcuts of which 3 are full-page (these illustrate the beginning of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). Curious 5-hole perforation in lower blank margin of sigs. Q-T (not objectionable, and not affecting text). Upper blank gutter margins of fols. AE4-AH2 with somewhat unattractive paper repairs infilling wormholes, affecting a few letters. Text well thumbed over the centuries and with soiling primarily on lower corners, traces of damp on top edges, lower corner of title-page repaired. Conjugate leaves AI3-6, AM3-6, BC1-8, BD1-2 and 7-8 are evenly browned (not objectionable) due to the paper quality. Excellently refurbished 19th-century binding of marbled paper over bevelled boards, recent brown calf spine and corner tips, black morocco lettering piece, original marbled pastedowns and endpapers. FIRST APPEARANCE OF THESE 87 REVOLUTIONARY AND OFTEN ASTOUNDING WOODCUTS WHICH ARE OF EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY AND IMAGINATION, JUSTLY PRAISED AS BEING THE FIRST "MODERN" ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIVINE COMEDY AND QUITE INDEPENDENT FROM ALL PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS. FURTHERMORE, THIS IS THE FIRST EDITION OF THE TEXT AS PREPARED BY ALESSANDRO VELLUTELLO, FOR WHICH HE COLLATED THREE EARLY DANTE MANUSCRIPTS AND PROVIDED IMPORTANT NEW COMMENTARIES WHICH CONTINUE TO BE CITED BY AUTHORITIES.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS: "After the 1544 edition, meaningful book illustration of Dante is dormant for two hundred years" (Richard Lansing, Dante Encyclopedia, who in his great book reproduces more than 20 woodcuts from our edition). While the artist of these early Mannerist woodcuts remains unknown, they may have been executed by our polyvalant printer Francesco Marcolini, an esteemed draftsman who was also an architect and close colleague of Tintoretto, Titian and Sansovino. Alternatively, according to Massimiliano Rossi and others, preliminary designs may have been created by the work's editor Alessandro Vellutello, who then commissioned Giovanni Britto (i.e. Johannes Breit, ca. 1500 - ca. 1550) to design and cut the woodblocks (Brit was connected to Titian; moreover, he had worked in Marcolini's shop). To the above names we would also propose that of the artist Giuseppe Porta (a.k.a. Giuseppe Salviati, ca. 1520 - ca. 1575). We note with particular interest Porta's illustrations in our printer's own book of fortune-telling games, "Le Sorti di Francesco Marcolino da Forli" (1540), which is accepted as one of the great illustrated books of the Renaissance, along with the present edition of the Divine Comedy.

The illustration cycle in the Marcolin-Vellutello Dante exhibits a rare and extremely early synergy between the commentator, printer and artist. For example, in the outer margin of fol. AA7r, Vellutello instructed Marcolini to print in the outer blank margin a vertical rule of 27 lines (10 cm. in length). The reader is informed that this verticle rule is exactly 1/6 of a "braccio," and that the width of the Inferno measures exactly 3000 braccia. NB: It has not escaped our notice that this is a very helpful measurement indeed! As the illustration cycle progresses, and as Dante and his guide Virgil descend through each of the nine circles of Hell, the number of braccia can be seen to decrease, the reason being that Dante's Inferno is shaped like a funnel. Below each woodcut, the artist has indicated the widths of these circles as "diametro," and their depths as "profondita."

Most of the woodcuts are 3/4 page in size, and can only be described as being tiny diamonds of Italian Renaissance art at its apogee.

THE TEXT: This is the first edition with Vellutello's commentary. "Though standing on the shoulders of his predecessors, especially of Landino, [Vellutello] is far more sober, reasonable, and reserved in the manner of allegorical interpretation." [...] The 1502 Aldine edition "practically fixed the text for three centuries. With the exception of the Giunta edition of 1506, based on a good but no immaculate MS, and Vellutello's of 1544, which was the result of a collation of several MSS, every edition of the sixteenth century rests upon it." (Scartazzini). According to Simon Gilson, "Marcolini's books acquired especial renown for their clear characters, elegant mis-en-page and the richness and variety of the woodcut illustrations."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: "In the printing of this edition, Purg. ii. 64-66 (on fol. V7r) were omitted through an oversight which was discovered shortly after the sale of the copies had begun. The publisher then caused the three lines to be added by means of hand-printing, and as the 63d line came at the bottom of the page, he was able to do this without other fault than having one column three lines too long." (Fisk, Dante Collection p. 8). Ours is one of the corrected copies.

CATALOGUER'S NOTE: In the gutter margin of final three gatherings is a clear impression of what may have been an errant piece of printing type that had fallen into the top and most pronounced fold of the distorted "corrugation" of the textblock. The fold itself would have been the normal result of printing on dampened paper which after drying had not been adequately beaten down and flattened. The object that was impressed likely measured approximately 15 mm in lenghth, 3 mm in width and 2 mm in thickness. The impression can be seen most distinctly on the final blank leaf, final printed leaf (colophon) and the penultimate leaf. We are unable to explain this phenomenon.

PROVENANCE: 16th-century ownership inscription of "Alessandro Vaglienti" (of Pisa?) on title-page, on AA2r, and on the colophon. This name frequently appears on sixteenth-century documents in the Alliata family archive, Archivio di Stato di Pisa (Inv. 74bis); later (library?) stamp on title-page cancelled and filled in with old paper.

§ Mortimer Italian, 146. Adams D-94. Ebert 5705. Essling 545. Gamba 318. Sander I, 2328. Volkmann, Iconographia Dantesca, 72 ff. Rossi, "Alessandro Vellutello e Giovanni Britto che 'per se fuoro'. Sul corredo grafico della 'Nova esposizione' (1544)" in: Studi rinascimentali, 2007:2, pp. 127-144. Scartazzini, Companion to Dante, 1893, pp. 472 and 483. Gilson, Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy, p. 179 and Chapter 5.