[Opere]. La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri con varie annotazioni e

DANTE

[Opere]. La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri con varie annotazioni e copiosi rami adornata.

SPECTACULARLY ILLUSTRATED, ROCOCO DANTE

Engraved portrait of the dedicatee Elisabeth of Russia and of Dante, engraved dedication, folding genealogical table, 110 further engraved plates, one for each canto of the Commedia and more, by Giampicoli, Crivellari, Magnini, Rizzi and others after Fontebasso, Schiavoni, Zompini and Marchaggio and others, and numerous head- and tail-vignettes, first title printed in red and black.

4 parts in 5 volumes (280 x 200mm). [16], XLVIII, CCCCVIII; CCCCXIII, [3]; CCCCLII, [4], 103, [1]; XII, 408; [4], 264, LXXXIV, [4]pp. Contemporary lace-cased Italian vellum over pasteboards, spines with tan labels, gilt with ‘DANTE’ and volume number, blue painted edges, marbled endpapers.

Venice: Antonio Zatta, 1757.

£10,000.00

DANTE

[Opere]. La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri con varie annotazioni e copiosi rami adornata.

A handsome copy, in exceptional condition, of the first collected edition of Dante: one of the most sumptuously illustrated, with more than one hundred full-page engraved plates. This is one of the finest productions of the Venetian printer Antonio Zatta, a passionate supporter of Dante at a time when such views were unfashionable. As well as the excellent 113 plates, the most impressive being for the Inferno, countless delightful head- and tail-pieces illustrate the work.

The Zatta Dante is described in the Philip Hofer Bequest as “the Venetian rococo book at its most colorful and characteristic”. The dedication is to Elisabeth Petrovna, Empress of Russia; commentaries for the Commedia are by Pompeo Venturi and Antonio Volpi, while the Argomenti in versi which precede each canto are by Gasparo Gozzi. Also in this edition Bruno Aretino’s Life of Dante, supplemented by Giuseppe Pelli’s biography.

Provenance: Letterpress shelf label of Biblioteca Banzi to pastedowns with handwritten shelfmarks.

Morazzoni, p. 255. Philip Hofer Bequest, 47.

Stock No.

260063

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