Qui comi[n]cia la vita e costumi dello excelle[n]te poeta vulgari Dante Alighieri di Firenze honore e gloria del idioma fiorentino ...
Series: Italian books before 1601 -- roll 345, item 1
Publisher: Wendelin, of Speier
Published: 1477
Place of publication: Venice
Language: ita
Number of pages: 752
Other titles: Incomincia la Co[m]media di Dante Allighieri di Firenze
Work titles: Divina commedia
Notes: Title from text incipit to the Vita di Dante on leaf ã2r.

Place of publication from Goff; printer and date from verse colophon (leaf PP11r).

Signatures: ã⁸ ẽ⁸ a-i¹⁰ K¹⁰ l-m⁸ n-s¹⁰ t-v⁸ x-y¹⁰ aa-gg¹⁰ hh-ii⁸ KK-OO¹⁰ PP¹² (ã1, a1, PP12 blank); ã2-4 signed 'ã', 'ã2', 'ã3' respectively.

Text in double columns, 46-49 lines per column.

Initial spaces; spaces also left for illustrations.

With the commentary of Jacopo della Lana, attributed in the colophon to Benvenuto d'Imola, accompanying each canto; corrected by Christofal Berardi.

Includes Boccaccio's Vita di Dante (in first edition) and, at end, verses by Bosone da Gubbio and Jacopo Alighieri, and the Credo falsely ascribed to Dante.

Hain-Copinger(+Add), 5942

Proctor, 4414

Goff, D-27

GW, 7964

BM 15th cent., V, 248 (IB.20577)

ISTC (CD-ROM, 1997 ed.), id00027000

Walsh, J.E. 15th cent. printed books, 1738-1739.

Gift; Obadiah Rich; 17 October 1831; Dn 14.77.

Gift; Charles Eliot Norton; 4 May 1905.

From the library of Cardinal Josephus Renatus Imperialis, with his bookstamp in lower margin of leaf ã2r; inscription on front flyleaf, "Presented to the Library of Harvard College. July 26. 1831. by O[badiah] Rich."

Ms. inscription on leaf at end, "Librum hũc Canonicis Regularibus Laterañ in monasterio diuj Joannis baptiste de [illegible] Padue agentibus donauit D. Petrus Montagnana quare om[ni]s pro eius anima deuote."  Later in the library of Count Dmitri Petrovich Buturlin, with his armorial bookplate and motto "Amantibus iustitiam pietatem fidem"; and the library of Charles Eliot Norton, with his autograph and date "1870."

Imperfect: right half of leaf ã2 wanting; with a leaf containing the missing text in MS pasted onto the stub; leaves a3-8 crudely mended; blank leaves wanting.

Initials added in red and blue on a2r, but spaces elsewhere not filled in.

Bound in 18th-century acid-sprinkled sheep, gilt, edges stained green; first few leaves torn and mended.

Imperfect: leaves dd5-6 and initial blank leaf wanting.

Large initial on a3r illuminated in gold and colors; initials elsewhere added in alternate red and blue, paragraph marks in red.

Bound in 19th-century red straight-grain morocco, gilt.