Dialogo di Antonio Manetti, cittadino fiorentino, circa al sito, forma, & misure dello inferno di Dante Alighieri.

8° (160 x 98 mm). Collation: A-G⁸. 56 leaves. Italic and roman type. Seven woodcuts showing cross-sections and maps of Hell (fols. C8v, G1r, G2r, G3r, G4r, G4v), and a map of the Earth, with the position of Hell and Purgatory (fol. G5v). Eighteenth-century pasteboards, title inked on the spine.

The first, and rare separate edition of the Dialogocirca el sito, forma et misure dello Inferno di Dante Alighieri by the Florentine mathematician, architect, and member of the Accademia Fiorentina Antonio di Tuccio Manetti (1423-1497), posthumously edited from Manetti's notes by the Florentine humanist Girolamo Benivieni (1453-1542), and presenting for the first time in the iconographical tradition of the Commedia woodcut cross-sections and maps of Hell. The images illustrating the position, structure, and dimensions of Hell are based on Manetti's unpublished calculations and designs, which had been one of the sources employed – in addition to Nardo di Cione's fresco in Santa Maria Novella in Florence – by Sandro Botticelli for his La Mappa dell'Inferno (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms Vat. Lat. 1896). TheDialogowas also included, in an appendix, in the first edition of the Commedia from the Florentine press of Filippo Giunta, printed likewise in 1506, and accompanied by the same woodcuts as here. A synopsis of Manetti's calculations had already been included by Landino in his commentary to the Commedia of 1481, but only after the 1506 Giuntina did the vogue for measuring and mapping Hell become widespread.