Dante Alighieri. Dante col sito, et forma dell'Inferno tratta dalla istessa descrittione del poeta. (Venice: in the house of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, August✱ 1515)

The second (and first illustrated) Aldine edition of the Divina commedia, one of the first books printed after the death o🔴f Aldo. In addition to woodcut illustrations of Hell and Purgatory, this edition includes a prefatory letter by Andrea Torresan🀅o to Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara; the 1502 first Aldine edition had no preface.

Evidently bound for Claude de Rabot, seigneur de Buffières, by the Salel Binder. De Marinis localized the binding to Venice, but this was subsequently corrected by Ilse Schunke to “Frankreich.” (For an identical binding for Rabot, see lot 972, Martialis, below. And for this binding, see Anthony Hobson, "Une note sur le fer de reliure d'un dauphin" in Bulletin du bibliophile (ꦜ1990), pp. 139-142 🍎Fig. 2, with the ownership inscription as Fig. 3.)

8vo (162 x 95 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: π² a-z⁸ A-H⁸: 250 leaves (l2 and H7 blank), foliated. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page, a1r, and final verso (otherwise blank), three-line initial spaces with guide letters at the beginning of each cantica, three woodcut diagrams by Trifone Gabriele at end (two double-page), one depicting the layout of Hell (H4v.5r), and the other two schematic diagrams of the sins in Hell (H5v–H6r) and Purgatory (H6v). (Gradually diminishing dampstain to lower fore-edge corners π1–t8, H3 and H4 neatly extended.)

binding: French dark green morocco (168 x 106 mm), possibly by the Salel (formerly Fontainebleau) Binder, early 1540s, frame formed by three gilt fillets, alternating with and flanked by blind fillets, gilt dolphin in corners, spine in four full and four half compartments, raised bands gilt-ruled or -hatched, top and bottom compartments cross-hatched in blind, plain endpapers, gilt edges. (Extremities lightly rubbed.) Green cloth folding-case, black moroꦕcco label.

provenance: Claude de Rabot, seigneur de Buffières (d. 1569), signature at foot of title-page — unidentified owner, apparently the copy exhibited: Société de la reliure Originale, La Reliure originale (Paris 1947), p. 45 no. 39 ("Maroquin vert. Décor mosaïque de filets droits et courbes entrelacés. Dos plats orné de filets croisés et de bandes de petits fers … Collection particulière") — Tammaro De Marinis (1878-1969) — Martin Breslauer Inc., Catalogue 104/I (New York, 1979), item 21 ($7,800). acquisition: Purchased from Martin Breslauer Inc., New York, 1979. references: UCLA 136.5; Adams D89; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 133.7; Cataldi Palau 8; Edit16 1150; Renouard 73/8; USTC 808771; for the binding: Tammaro De Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI (Florence 1960), no. 1750 & pl. 334; Schunke, “Venezianische Renaissanceeinbande” in Studi di Bibliografia e di Storia in onore di Tammaro de Marinis (Verona 1964), IV, pp. 123–200; A. Hobson, “Une note sur le fer de reliure d'un dauphin” in Bulletin du bibliophile (199🧜0), pp. 139–142, Fig. 2 (binding) and Fig. 3 (ownership inscriptions)