Object details
Object number
2.c.1.7
Creator(s)
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Dante Alighieri
(Florence, 1265 - 1321, Ravenna)
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author
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Cristoforo Landino
(Florence, 1425 - 1498, Borgo alla Collina)
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author
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Bonino Bonini
(Lastovo, Dubrovnik Republic, about 1454 - 1528, Treviso)
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printer
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Sandro Botticelli
(Florence, 1444 or 1445 - 1510, Florence)
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designer
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Robert Riviere
(London, 1808 - 1882, London)
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binder
Title
Comedy of the Divine Florentine poet Danthe Aleghieri [Comedia del Divino poeta fiorentino Danthe Aleghieri]
Date
1487
Medium
Printed ink on paper
Language
Italian
Publication Place
Brescia
Binding Description
Full brown crushed morocco; fillets on sides; pierced escutcheon design on back; fillets inside; gilt edges
Description
I Vol. (310 leaves, 620 pages) : paper : ill. ; 35 cm. (folio)
Dimensions
37.2 x 26 x 5.2 cm (14 5/8 x 10 1/4 x 2 1/16 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Stamped (beneath front pastedown): "Bound by Riviere."
Affixed (front pastedown): bookplate of Isabella Stewart Gardner
Affixed (front pastedown): Edward Cheney's bookplate
Inscribed in pen (recto of front flyleaf): "J. Ruskin. Parted with for want of room Brantwood 3rd April 1880."
Inscribed in pencil (recto of front flyleaf): "E. C. L. 1882" [or "£1682"; probably hand of Edward Cheney]
Affixed (recto of front flyleaf): Excerpt from unidentified sale catalogue, lot 8208
Affixed (recto of front flyleaf): Excerpt from the Cheney sale catalogue, lot 542
Marked (f. a2 recto, opening of Inferno): Unidentified coat of arms [with gules, a bend sable/argent fimbriated azur (?)]
Marked (f. a2 recto, opening of Purgatory): Unidentified coat of arms
Watermarks (on leaves c5 and aa1): Unidentified
Enclosed: typed bibliographic description
Enclosed: photocopy of typed bibliographic description
Enclosed: note, inscribed in pencil "2.C.1.7 Brescia / Dante", with list of enclosures
Enclosed: four pages from a dealer catalogue (pp. 3-6; 9-12), Edizione Della Divina Commedia
Enclosed: (recto) page 25 from a Fogg Museum catalogue, entry titled "Dante and Petrach in A Painting by Giovanni Dal Ponte"; (verso) iIllustration of painting
Enclosed: dealer catalogue lot description and illustration of "La zucca del Doni" by Anton Francesco
Provenance
Possibly in the collection of a member of the Zenner family, Nuremberg.
Collection of the English art and social critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), by 3 April 1880.
Offered for sale at an unidentified English sale, lot 8208.
Collection of the art collector and watercolor painter Edward Cheney (1803–1884), about 1882.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the Cheney sale at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London for £80 on 22 July 1886 through the scholar and critic Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) and the bookseller Bernard Quaritch (1819-1899), London, lot 542.
Commentary
This edition of the Divine Comedy is illustrated throughout with a series of woodcuts inspired by Baldini's engravings after Botticelli. The borders around the woodcuts are made up of white-lined designs of strapwork and grotesque figures on a black ground, a woodcut style and technique used frequently by Venetian illustrators. The added illuminated borders and capital letters in bright pigments and gold leaf are opulent touches borrowed from the manuscript tradition, and are not uncommon in early printed books. This volume was once owned by John Ruskin, an avid student of the art of the book.
Bibliography
Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge. Catalogue of the Choice Library of the late Edward Cheney, Esq. (London, 25-29 June 1886), lot 542.
Dietrich Reichling. Appendices ad Hainii-Copingeri Repertorium Bibliographicum...Emendationes (Monachii, 1905-11), no. 5948.
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Books from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1906), p. 21. (as bound by Rivière [sic])
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Manuscripts and Bookbindings from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1922), pp. 86-87.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925), pp. 97-99.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 251.
Maureen Cunningham. "The Dante Quest." Fenway Court (1972), pp. 21-24.
Frederick Richmond Goff. Incunabula in American libraries; a third census of fifteenth-century books recorded in North American collections (New York, 1964), no. D.31.
Rebecca Karo. Short-Title Catalogue of Highlights from the Book Collection in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Unpublished manuscript. (Boston, 1970s), no. 6.
Rollin van N. Hadley. Museums Discovered: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1981), p. 148.
Hilliard Goldfarb. Italian Renaissance Drawings, Medals, and Books. Exploring Treasures in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum I. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1991), pp. 15-16.
Hilliard Goldfarb and Susan Sinclair. Isabella Stewart Gardner: Woman and the Myth. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1994), pp. 12, 37, no. 20.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, no. 07968, accessed 21 September 2016. http://www.gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/GW07968.htm
British Library. Incunabula Short Title Catalogue, no. id00031000, accessed 21 September 2016. http://istc.bl.uk/search/search.html?operation=record&rsid=556000&q=0#
Anne-Marie Eze in Jeffrey F. Hamburger et al. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Newton: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College; Cambridge: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 2016), pp. 17, 233, 297, 308-309, 310-11, 311-12, no. 248, ill.
Dakota Jackson, "Isabella and the Dante Society," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2 November 2021, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/isabella-and-dante-society
Tiffany York, "From a Little Spark May Burts a Flame: Ackroyd & Harvey's 'Script'," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 27 June 2023, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/little-spark-may-burst-flame-ackroyd-harveys-script.
Gallery
Long Gallery
Case
Dante Case
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