His efforts in the philological, editorial, and poetic arenas led to a general recognition of a distinguished vernacular tradition worthy of canonization no less than the Latin and Greek traditions idolized by the humanists. Thus, the linguistic provocation of the non-Tuscan incunable editions of the Comedy to which Landino had responded in 1481 was renewed at the beginning of the 16th century by this Aldine edition of the poem. Bembo, a member of the Venetian patriciate, presumed to teach the Florentines about their own vernacular classic and their own language. In fact, Bembo's edition was undertaken with a philological acumen unprecedented for vernacular works and unusual even for Latin classics. For the first time, the text's abbreviations were explained and the words divided according to grammar.
Punctuation is abundant, and the use of the apostrophe and many accents are regularized.
Bembo's text was to become the basis for every subsequent edition of the Divine Comedy until the late 19th century. The result was a linguistic restoration of the work to Dante's own pre-humanistic age. While Bembo's edition represented a radical improvement of the text from an objectively philological perspective, it also had the effect of revealing the distance between Dante and the rhetorical sensibilities of the High Renaissance, whose idol was increasingly the urbane and psychologically exquisite Petrarch. For while he wanted to appear in his poem to be a master of each of the seven arts, of philosophy and of all Christian subjects too, he excelled less and was less perfect in his poetry.