1879 Italian Vellum Book - La Divina Commedia, Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

A handsome 1879 Florentine edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy, preserved in an elegant full vellum binding with gilt decoration and striking red edges, and complete with its portrait of Dante and three cosmographical plates illustrating the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.

Author: Dante Alighieri.
Title: La Divina Commedia.
Commentary: Pietro Fraticelli.
Publisher: Firenze: G. Barbèra, Editore, 1879.
Edition: New edition, with additions and corrections (Nuova edizione con giunte e correzioni).
Language: Italian.
Size: 7.5 x 5 inches.
Pages: 723, cxxx pages.
Binding: Very good full vellum binding, the spine finely decorated in gilt with repeating geometric ornaments and a contrasting red morocco title label lettered in gilt. All edges red. The vellum shows light natural toning and occasional minor marks consistent with age, with the rear board showing a gentle outward bow, as shown. An attractive and remarkably well-preserved binding. Protected in a removable mylar cover. 
Content: Very good content, clean and well preserved, with light age toning and occasional spotting. With an early ownership inscription dated Roma, marzo 1880 to the front free endpaper and the period bookseller’s ticket of Libreria Alessandro Manzoni, 262 Via del Corso, Roma, to the front pastedown, as shown.
Illustrations: Complete with four plates: an engraved portrait of Dante after the celebrated likeness attributed to Giotto, together with three plates illustrating the cosmography of the Divina Commedia: Spaccato dell’Inferno, Prospetto del Purgatorio, and the folding Paradiso o Figura Universale della Divina Commedia.

Estimate: USD 300–350

The book: A particularly handsome nineteenth-century Florentine edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia, enriched by Pietro Fraticelli’s extensive commentary and a complete suite of four plates. The three cosmographical illustrations provide fascinating visual representations of Dante’s extraordinary architecture of the afterlife, guiding the reader through the circles of Hell, the mountain of Purgatory and the celestial spheres of Paradise.

Published in Florence by G. Barbèra in 1879, this substantial edition is especially appealing in its elegant full vellum binding, with gilt-decorated spine, contrasting red morocco label and vivid red edges. Its early Roman provenance, including an ownership inscription dated only a year after publication, adds further character to this well-preserved copy.

The author: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher whose Divina Commedia stands among the foundational works of Western literature. Written in the Italian vernacular rather than Latin, Dante’s visionary journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso helped establish the Tuscan dialect as the foundation of literary Italian. Its extraordinary fusion of poetry, theology, philosophy, politics and medieval cosmology has made the Divine Comedy one of the most influential and enduring works ever written.

The commentator: Pietro Fraticelli (1803–1866) was an Italian scholar and editor particularly associated with the works of Dante. His annotated editions of the Divina Commedia were widely circulated during the nineteenth century and helped make Dante’s poetry accessible to generations of Italian readers through extensive historical, linguistic and literary commentary.