Dante’s Comedy is an allegorical poem that describes his descent into Hell (Inferno), ascent through Purgatory (Purgatorio), and elevation into Heaven (Paradiso). It was written in the early fourteenth century, and never went out of popularity since. The poem presents the medieval theocentric understanding of the world, beginning with a gloomy and apocalyptic vision of the present, but progressing with hope for future redemption. Dante did not wish for the poem to be read merely allegorically and, in essence, as a fanciful fantasy, but rather as events that really took place: just as the biblical narrative was considered factual in his time, Dante imitates the nature of the Book written by God. The title of his work refers to its positive ending and humble style rather than alluding to what ‘comic’ means today. It was the later medieval poet Giovanni Boccaccio who defined the Comedy ‘divine’: not because it describes a journey towards heaven, but because of its sublime quality.  

This sixteenth-century edition includes a commentary by the scholar Alessandro Vellutello (b.1473), who also designed the striking illustrations that accompany the text. The printer Francesco Marcolini arranged the commentary like a marginal gloss to the main text, including printed signposts. 

Bibliographic description
Chancery paper 4to. [442] leaves. Printed signatures: all gatherings of 8 except CC, which counts 10. Includes printed guide-letters and woodcuts throughout, portraying scenes from the text as well as the geography of Dante's otherworldly landscapes.    

Binding description
?16th-century French brown goatskin, possibly by Clovis Eve. Covers decorated with gilt fillets to form a border, with gilt quarter arabesques at the corners and gilt stylised oval as centrepiece; gilt fillet on board-edges. Spine is flat, decorated with elaborate tools in strapwork design with foliate stems around compartments. Textblock trimmed and hand-decorated with ink using a swirl design. Evidence of two fore-edge ties. Endpapers of plain paper.