Dante, Dante col sito, et forma dell'Inferno, Venice, Aldo, 1515, contemporary Italian morocco gilt

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.

A second copy, bound in the style of Niccolò Franzese.

8vo (160 x 97 mm). Italic type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: π² a-z⁸ A-H⁸ (l2 and H7 blank): 250 leaves, 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 other two, schematic diagrams of the sins in Hell (H5v-H6r) and Purgatory (H6v). (A few marginal wormholes, occasional light soiling, top border-rules of diagrams shaved.)

binding: Italian gilt-tooled goatskin (165 x 108 mm), possibly Roman and dating to the 1540s, covers with blind fillet around sides, black painted frame flanked by gilt fillets, fleurons at inner corners, central panel gilt with leafy arabesque sprays with some open areas painted black, spine in four full and four half compartments, central compartments gilt-tooled, top and bottom compartments cross-hatched in gilt, raised bands gilt-ruled or -hatched, plain endpapers, edges gilt and gauffered and colored with a red and silver guilloche with red and blue flowers in interstices, stubs from two pairs of ties. (Skillfully rebacked retaining most of original spine, some black coloring lost from front cover.) Marbled slipcase.

provenance: seventeenth-century(?) inscription, "Todosca," on verso of flyleaf — Pierre Hollier-Larousse (1878-1959), bookplate. acquisition: Purchased from Rossignol, Paris, 1993. references: UCLA 136; Adams D88; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 133.7; Cataldi Palau 8; Edit16 1150; Renouard 73/8; USTC 808771