Dante Alighieri, Christophoro Landino - La Commedia - 1484

Early Commedia edition with Landino's commentary (Publisher's imprint: Fine del comento di Christoforo Landino Fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Danthe poeta excellentissimo. Et impresso in Vinegia per Octaviano Scoto da Monza.Adi.xxiii.di.Marzo.Mcccc.Lxxxiiii ), Venice, Scoto, 23 March 1484.

64-line commentary around text, Roman type, various woodcut initials.

Folio, 258 leaves (of 270). Collation: a10 (is missing, partially replaces by leaves from other editions); b-z & A-H8 (-f7) I K6 (- K6).
Quire a10 (Proemio), leaf f7 (Inferno Canto 7) and leaf K6 (Register) are missing. Leaf a1 is included in exact facsimile, leaves a3 to a9 probably from the edition Bartolomeo de Zanni from 1507. In the location of leaf a10, a leaf from another (incunabulum?) edition is included in the book, with a beautiful full-page woodcut on verso.

Publisher's imprint: Fine del comento di Christoforo Landino Fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Danthe poeta excellentissimo. Et impresso in Vinegia per Octaviano Scoto da Monza.Adi.xxiii.di.Marzo.Mcccc.Lxxxiiii

Eighteenth-century half-morocco leather binding with printing details and decorations printed in gold on the compartments. Some sixteenth-century glosses in the text. Leaf K5 with some loss of text, supplemented in old handwriting. Some minor defects such as (restored) marginal tears and discolouration. See pictures.

Apart from leaf f7, the corpus of the work is complete. Despite the parts of the preface and the woodcut from other editions, this book is still a very interesting incunabulum.

Although without illustrations, this book is considered one of the finest of all 15th-century prints, from a typographical point of view. It is characterised by very consistent inking and printing, which resulted in clean, full type. It is also characterised by good spacing, i.e. the alignment of the text block and header with previous and later pages.

This is the first reprint of the Landino commentary which assumed the status of a vulgate in the 15th century. It is nevertheless remarkable for the care taken in its preparation: although some omissions from the text are the same as those from 1481, other passages that were missing from 1481 were restored. In general, the text reveals the intervention of proofreaders who strove for a certain degree of orthographic regularity and textual quality.

ITSC id00030000, BMC V, 279; Goff D-30; GW 7967; Hain-Copinger 5947; IGI 361.