Danthe / Landino - Comedia - 1536

THE DIVINE POEM, ILLUSTRATED AND EXPLAINED: GREAT PLATES, ILLUMINATED BY THE COMMENTARY OF LANDINO
100 illustrations of which the first, very famous, full page, shows Dante and Virgil contending with the three Beasts.
Dantean tradition, already rooted thanks to Landino’s commentary, was enriched by new devices that made it more accessible to students and educated readers.
This edition of the Commedia of the divine poet Danthe Alighieri, printed in Venice in 1536 by Gioanni Giolitto da Trino, represents one of the most significant testimonies of Dantean typographic reception in the first half of the XVI century. The frontispiece, adorned with the woodcut portrait of Dante. The work sits at a moment when the poem was spread in a broader cultural circuit, with both literary and didactic purposes.
MARKET VALUE
Editions of the Commedia prior to the middle of the sixteenth century are particularly rare and highly valued on the antiquarian market. A copy from 1536, complete and in good condition, can be placed in a range of €8,000–€15,000, with fresh copies and a frontispiece intact that can exceed these figures at international auctions. Interest is heightened by the fact that this is an edition not common compared to the broader production of the Giolito successors.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
100 wood-engravings, one for each canto, of which the first, very famous, is a full page, showing Dante and Virgil contending with the three Beasts. Inferno: 34 - Purgatorio: 33 - Paradiso: 33.
Total: 100 images, according to a systematic iconographic program. Italic text, editorial mark at the colophon. Sheets (1); [16 pp], 440; (1). The initial 11 leaves of the index have not been rebound in this copy, as in the preceding editions, frontispiece reproduced on paper of the period, 2E1, replaced by a blank sheet. Some foxing and small stains (mostly marginal), slightly faded wormholes, loss of text at 2G6, colophon verso and with a small loss of text. Reused parchment spine with covers covered by medieval manuscript on parchment, with rubricated initials in red and blue. Text in two columns in crisp type. Sheets uniformly browned but sound. In old books, with a multi-century history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Comedia del divino poeta Danthe Alighieri, con la dotta & leggiadra spositione di Christophoro Landino; con somma diligentia & accuratissimo studio nuouamente corretta, & emendata: da infiniti errori purgata, ac etiandio con le figure, & con la vita, costumi, & studi del medesimo poeta, diligentemente raccolta; con una tavola copiosissima delle cose più notabili in essa contenute.
In Venetia, appresso Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari da Trino
(Al colophon:) In Vineggia: per M. Bernardino Stagnino, 1536.
Dante Alighieri.
Commento di Cristoforo Landino

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The 1536 edition is part of that printing season which, in Renaissance Venice, consolidated Dante as an indispensable author of the Italian literary canon. The presence of the table demonstrates the growing need for a Dante that is “consultable,” not only as poetic and theological reading, but also as a linguistic, moral, and philosophical repertoire. Giolito da Trino, less famous than his brother Gabriele, helped spread Dante in a polished and innovative editorial guise, paving the way for his fortune in subsequent generations.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Florentine poet and intellectual, composed the Divine Comedy between 1304 and 1321. A monumental work structured into Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, it unites religious vision and political engagement, with a language that fixed the foundations of the Italian literary language. Considered the father of the Italian language, Dante has had an uninterrupted reception from the Middle Ages to today.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
After the early fifteenth-century editions (Foligno 1472, Venice 1477), the Commedia was repeatedly published by Venetian presses. Giolito da Trino’s 1536 edition precedes the more famous Gabriele Giolito series and constitutes a fundamental piece in the transmission of Dante. The print runs were modest and aimed at a selective audience of educated readers, for both scholarly and moral-reading purposes. The survival of complete copies today is rare and precious.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
The annals of Dante editions, under the year 1536: survey of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century editions of the Commedia with Landinian commentary; reference to the Venetian edition by Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari da Trino, with notes on typographical variants and editorial diffusion.

Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501–1600, section Italy, Venice, Giolito: record of the 1536 edition of the Commedia with Landinian commentary; useful reference for locating it within the European typographic panorama of the sixteenth century.

EDIT16 – Census of Italian sixteenth-century editions: entry for the 1536 Venetian edition, with mention of the principal copies preserved in Italian public libraries; general description of the format, the commentary and the typographic responsibility.

ICCU / OPAC SBN: catalog records linked to the Giolito 1536 edition, with precise localizations of copies in Italy; useful for comparing states and verifying collation.

BnF, Catalogue général: presence of copies of the 1536 Venetian edition or related Giolito/Landino editions, with bibliographic description and shelf mark; essential reference for the Dantean editorial tradition outside Italy.

WorldCat: international census of known copies of the Giolito da Trino 1536 edition, with locations in European and North American libraries; useful for assessing relative rarity and diffusion.

Landino, Cristoforo, Comento sopra la Comedia di Dante Alighieri, various Venetian and Florentine editions of the XV–XVI century: indispensable reference for textual comparison and for the history of the humanistic Dantean commentary.

Giolito de’ Ferrari, Gabriel, Venetian typographic repertoires of the XVI century (see Renouard; Ascarelli–Menato): for situating the edition in the Giolito catalog and in the Giolito family’s editorial strategy, with particular attention to editions “of wide diffusion” in the vernacular.