La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri postillata da Torquato Tasso...

Three volumes in 4° (288x207 mm). [4],xviii, [2], 259, [1]; [4], 244; [4], 239, [1] pages. In the first volume engraved portraits of Dante and Tasso, both protected by tissue paper. Uniformly bound in contemporary vellum, all covers framed in border of gilt fillets and with hand-painted scenes depicting views of Italian cities (occasional light abrasion to edges). Spines elaborately gilt-tooled, title and volume numbering on double lettering-pieces. Pastedowns and flyleaves in blue paper. Gilt edges; each volume with fine fore-edge paintings. Excellent condition.

Provenance: the outstanding Dante scholar George John Warren, 5th baron Vernon (1803-1866; ex-libris on the front pastedown; Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of Printed Books, and a few Manuscripts, comprising The Property of A. R. Geldie... also a Further Selection from the Library of the Right Hon. Lord Vernon, London 19 October 1921, lot 461); purchased by David (probably the bookseller active at the time in Cambridge); Philip C. Duschnes Rare Books New York (small label on the recto of the rear flyleaf); the Chicago collectors Samuel R. and Marie-Louise Rosenthal (ex-libris on the front pastedown; Bloomsbury Auctions, The Library of the late Samuel R. and Marie-Louise Rosenthal of Chicago, London 2006, lot 32); Livio Ambrogio collection.

A sumptuous copy, with unique hand-paintings on covers and fore-edges, of the Commedia edited by Giovanni Rosini and accompanied by Torquato Tasso's (1544-1595) glosses, including the engraved portraits of Dante and Tasso, inserted only in a few copies. The edition was limited to 166 copies, and this one belongs to the one hundred copies printed on ‘carta velina grave'. The finely executed hand-painted views on the covers are the Ducal Palace in Ferrara and the Temple of the Sybil in Tivoli (volume 1); the Bridge of Sighs and the Campanile of St Mark's in Venice (volume 2); the Temple of Mars and the Fish Market in Rome (volume 3). Each volume also has a fore-edge water-colour painting of high quality, with scenes depicting respectively the Ponte Santa Trinita in Florence – the bridge on which Dante first encountered his beloved Beatrice as described in the Vita Nuova –, a view of Venice from the Giudecca, and the Bridge and the Castle of St Angelo in Rome.
A spectacular set from a distinguished owner: the renowned Dante scholar Lord Vernon, one of the leading figures in the Anglo Florentine community and one of the members of the ‘Dante Club', who were in the habit of dressing up like Dante in medieval costume. Between 1858 and 1865 Vernon published his three-volume edition of the Inferno. The third volume is commonly known as the Album, and contains numerous plates of towns, buildings and landscapes mentioned in the Inferno, reflecting the nineteenth-century vogue for sightseeing ‘in the steps of Dante', as this copy attests.