La Divina Commedia novamente illustrata da artisti italiani a cura di Vittorio Alinari e riveduta nel testo da Giuseppe Vandelli. Seconda edizione rinnovata .

Large 4° (304x243 mm). 263, [1] pages. With eighty-nine original sketches and drawings in varying sizes, executed by twenty-three artists using different techniques, each mounted on brown cardboard and protected by tissue paper printed with the artist's name and the number of the relevant canto. Original binding in antique style, blind tooled half-leather, wooden boards with two clasps, straps missing. On the front cover the title ‘la divina commedia di dante alighieri' on a vellum label. Spine with four double raised bands, blind and gilt tooled, author's name in gilt lettering. Pastedowns and flyleaves in parchment paper. Preserved inside there is a typewritten sheet from Alinari himself, describing his copy.

Provenance: Vittorio Alinari (1859-1932); his heirs; Livio Ambrogio collection.

A unique and extraordinary copy of the second edition of the Alinari Divina Commedia, containing eighty-nine original sketches and drawings made mainly on the occasion of the competition to illustrate Dante's poem held in May 1900 by the Fratelli Alinari firm in Florence.The competitors had to send drawings for at least two cantos from the Inferno, and in June 1901 the works were exhibited at La Società di Belle Arti in Florence. The first prize was awarded to Alberto Zardo, the second one to Armando Spadini, while the third prize was divided equally between Duilio Cambellotti and Ernesto Bellandi. In the same period the Alinaris commissioned illustrations for the other two cantiche of the poem. In all, 381 illustrations by fifty-nine Italian artists were created, which taken as a whole reflect both the popularity of Dante at the time and the influence of Symbolism, the Pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau in Italy. The first edition of this artistic masterpiece appeared in 1902-1903.
Most of the original works, both those submitted for the competition and those commissioned later by the Alinari, are now dispersed among public and private collections, but eighty-nine – among the most important ones – remained in the possession of the Alinari, and were later mounted on cardboard and inserted into Vittorio Alinari's personal copy of the Commedia. The present copy contains drawings by twenty-three artists, including Alfredo Baruffi, Ernesto Bellandi, Silvio Bicchi, Pietro Chiesa, Giovanni Costetti, Adolfo De Carolis, Natale Faorzi, Giacomo Lolli, Armando Spadini, Alberto Zardo, and in particular Duilio Cambellotti, whose illustrations to Dante are justly praised for their very high quality and much sought after by art collectors. A few drawings included in this personal Alinari copy are unpublished, such as the pen-and-wash ink portrait of Dante by Silvio Bicchi, inserted after the half-title page.