MOUSEION CURATOR NOTE: “The Sessa brothers’ 1596 grand folio—the Renaissance’s most beautiful Dante—brings poem, picture, and commentary into a single luminous embrace, here preserved in a clean, broad-margined copy worthy of museum showcase.” THE BOOK: Dante Alighieri — Dante con l’espositioni di Christoforo Landino et d’Alessandro Vellutello. Venezia, Giovanni Battista & Giovanni Bernardo Sessa, 1596. Folio (313 × 213 mm). Complete, unusually fresh specimen. pp. [28], 163, [4], 164–392 [i.e. 396] (total 428 pp.). 96 illustrations. Arrives in MOUSEION custom-made box as seen in images. BOOK DESCRIPTION: Seasoned Dante experts and librarians repeatedly single out the Sessa folios, as the crowning illustrated Dantes of the sixteenth century, rivaled only by their Marcolini progenitor of 1544. University and museum notes stress the beauty and detail of these Venetian woodcuts; major bibliographers emphasize how the Sessa issues preserved and perfected the Marcolini cycle for new readers, adding the striking title portrait in 1596. Deborah Parker, writing for The World of Dante, famously characterizes the Vellutello/Marcolini images—reused here—as the most distinctive Renaissance picturing of the poem after Botticelli. On any fair reckoning of aesthetics and impact, the present Sessa 1596 stands first, or at very least in a dead heat with the 1544 Marcolini as the most beautiful Dante of the 16th century. This volume stands as the capstone printing of the century’s Dantes, the last issued before the seventeenth century. Sessa brothers’ grand folio of Dante, the splendid final Cinquecento issue of Francesco Sansovino’s editorial project that unites, in one commanding page-layout, the two most influential Renaissance commentaries on the Commedia: Landino’s humanist gloss and Vellutello’s rigorously textual exposition. The book is a feast of typography and image: the poem set within a frame of commentary, in handsome italic and roman types, decorated with woodcut headpieces, initials, and Sessa’s celebrated printer’s emblem. Most striking are the 96 woodcut illustrations, including three full-page plates (one opening each cantica), and the large profile portrait of Dante in an elaborate title-border. CONDITION REPORT: Clean, bright, and broad-margined; strong impressions of type and blocks. paper of excellent rag quality. Illustrations: Crisp throughout, with the three full-page plates notably rich in tone; circular maps of Inferno and stellar scenes of Paradiso are particularly well-inked, with no smudging or show-through. scattered light foxing; faint marginal water-stain to upper outer blank corner on a handful of leaves, normal toning to title. Binding: 19th-century half vellum over marbled boards; gilt-lettered spine labels; blue edges; sound and attractive. In short: an unusually fresh specimen of one of the great illustrated books of the Renaissance. MOUSEION CURATOR NOTE: “The 1596 Sessa is the prestige imprint of Renaissance Dante—long regarded among the most beautiful sixteenth-century editions—uniting Sansovino’s dual commentary with the full, ninety-six-cut visual cycle in a mature, authoritative mise-en-page. This copy’s broad margins, strong strikes of the blocks, and scholarly Roman provenance make it an exceptional volume. A striking museum-grade Venetian landmark that rewards close reading and crowns a collection.” PROVENANCE: Traces of armorial ex-libris on the front pastedown, signature of Michelangelo Zagaglia on d1 and at the end; oval Roman bookplate, Ex libris Aloysii Can. Zampelli, Romae (i.e., Canon Luigi Zampelli, Rome), on the title likely 19th century. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: This is, in effect, is the last Renaissance Dante: “the last edition of the century,” a summing-up before textual scholarship took new directions in the seventeenth century. That status makes this copy not merely beautiful, but pivotal for any collection documenting how Europe learned to read Dante. Having already issued earlier Venetian folios, the Sessa house and Sansovino present in 1596 a refined mise-en-page and a careful reconciliation of the two commentaries. It is the best-read sixteenth-century Dante in the Renaissance sense of the term—learned, practical, and lucid. Building on Marcolini’s 1544 suite (87 cuts), Sessa’s folio offers a fuller series, culminating here in 96 woodcuts plus the large new title portrait—an emphatic visual “finale” to the sixteenth century’s illustrated Dante’s. This volume is an early print collector’s dream: a classic text surrounded by learned voices, given clarity by images, and printed with an eye for beauty and use together. The Sessa 1596 is, by critical consensus, at the summit of sixteenth-century Dante illustration — one of Commedia’s most beautiful editions. #historyconnoisseurcf