Dante Alighieri - Imago Editore - Divina Commedia del Cardinale Corner (anno 1450): edizione facsimile - 2017

Divine Comedy of Cardinal Corner - Code 67
Housed in the Library of the Diocesan Seminary of Padua

Copy number: 157

14th century
Format: 23.9 cm x 34 cm
301 leaves
Gold leaf application
Treated parchment paper
Handcrafted binding
Hand sewing
Mounted on antique paper
Leather cover with blind embossing

The name recalls Giorgio Corner, cardinal and bishop of Padua, to whose initiative a decisive moment in the history of the manuscript is owed. In 1720, by his will, the library collection of the Padovan count Alfonso Alvarotti was purchased: along with the noble’s volumes, the codex entered the Library of the Diocesan Seminary of Padua, where it is still kept.

The facsimile edition reproduces a manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s Comedy characterized by a rich illustrative apparatus: each canto opens with an image representing its content, guiding the reader through the Dantean journey.

Refined ribbon initials, adorned with fruit and flowers, mark the poem and the chapters of the commentary. The decoration links post-Gothic tradition with the elegance of the late Gothic; for its execution, a hypothetical attribution to Michelino da Besozzo, an important interpreter of Lombard miniatures active in the Veneto, has been proposed.

The manuscript’s oldest history leads to Ferrara, where the codex was already in the mid-15th century. In 1456 Gaspare di Tommaso di Montone made a copy for the city’s praetor, faithfully reproducing its illustrations and ornaments: a testimony to the circulation and fortune of this pictorial model.

The Dantean text is accompanied by rubrics of the cantiche and of the individual cantos and by commentary predominantly by Jacopo della Lana; the proem and the first canto of Inferno follow the commentary of the Ottimo.

Copy complete with case and commentary.

Published by Imago - The nobility of the facsimile