Few works continue to draw so much study and bring about so much imagery as Dante’s Comedy. The Terza Rima invented to tell the tale is a challenge when you don’t speak the Italian of the day and attempts at translation are of particular interest to me. From blank verse to irregular rhymes and from hendecasyllabic* terzines to prose, so many attempts have been made to capture the essence of Dante. Translations have been made into dozens of languages, and the struggle to translate words, sayings, and idioms is difficult enough when using the same alphabet but attempts with Hebrew, Cyrillic, or Korean make things even more difficult. Editions of Dante have highlighted not only the work or translator but some of the most well-known printers, artists, binders, and illustrators—all eager to make a special edition.
My collection focuses on all these areas and more. Hundreds of editions across dozens of languages using every technique in the translators’ toolkit along with volumes of notable artistic touch. It is remarkable to compare how translators, and languages, lend themselves to Dante and to explore the nuance of language through the lens of one of the most important works in history.
*a line of verse consisting of eleven syllables
Opere del divino poeta Danthe con i suoi commenti: recorrecti et con ogne diligentia novamente in littera cursiva impresse. Venice: Bernardino Stagnino da Trino, 1512.
First Stagnino edition of the Commedia, and the first to combine quarto format and italic type. This is also the first edition in which the adjective "divino" appears in the title: used here by the printer Stagnino to define Dante, this famous epithet was eventually transferred from the poet to the poem in the title of Giolito's edition of 1555. The adjective was originally introduced by Boccaccio to refer to the Commedia in his famous commentary, composed around 1351-55 and first printed in 1477. Dante and his poem have been called "divine" (or variations of this adjective, such as "venerabile" or "divo") ever since, but Stagnino was the first printer who adopted this adjective in the title of a printed edition.
(DORÉ, Gustave) DANTE. The Vision of Hell; The Vision of Purgatory and Paradise. London, Paris & New York: Cassell and Company, [1883].
Two volumes bound in one. Thick folio (11 by 13 inches), contemporary three-quarter burgundy morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, renewed black morocco spine label, renewed cloth covers, marbled edges.
Splendid later edition of one of Doré's most famous illustrated works, the celebrated English translation of Dante by Henry Francis Cary, with frontispiece portrait of Dante and 135 full-page wood-engravings, showing the torments of Hell "with minute and sometimes shocking fidelity." Handsomely bound.
DANTE ALIGHIERI. La commedia. Col commento inedito di Stefano Talice da Ricaldone pubblicato per cura di Vincenzo Promis bibliotecario di S. M. e di Carlo Negroni socio della commissione dei testi di lingua. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1888
Second Talice da Ricaldone edition, but the first commercially available, with an expanded preface. The contemporary Italian vellum bindings, with gilt and onlay details, are very similar in style to the work of the Florentine binder Giulio Giannini, who found enduring success in supplying the literary and aesthetic taste of late-Victorian English Grand Tour travellers. The first edition of 1886, published in Turin in one volume (rather than three), "was not for sale but was distributed through official circles to certain libraries and individuals" (Koch).One of Hoepli's most famous and successful editions of Dante, this work became known as"il Dante del Re" (the King's Dante), because it was commissioned by Umberto I as a gift for his son, prince Vittorio Emanuele.
Three volumes, octavo (230 x 148 mm). Contemporary vellum, smooth spines intricately tooled in gilt, black roan labels, initials "W.N.B" in gilt at foot of spines, covers framed with black roan onlay borders and richly gilt with foliate and fleur-de-lys designs, red decal fleur-de-lys centrepieces, floral gilt roll on turn-ins, gilt fleur-de-lys patterned endpapers, top edges gilt, red silk bookmarkers.