Dante con l’espositioni di Christoforo Landino, et di Alessandro Vellutello. Sopra la sua Comedia dell’Inferno, del Purgatorio, & del Paradiso. Con Tauole, Argomenti, & Allegorie, & riformato, riueduto, & ridotto alla sua uera Lettura, per Francesco Sansovino Fiorentino.

Folio (327 x 218 mm). Collation: a⁸, b⁶, c⁴, d¹⁰, A-V⁸, X¹², Y-Z⁸, AA-ZZ⁸, AAA-CCC⁸. [28], 392 [i.e. 396] leaves. Italic and roman type. Woodcut printer's devices within large headpiece on fols. a2r, a5r, b2r, c1v, c2v, X8r, NN2r; a different device on fol. CCC8v. On the title-page woodcut medallion portrait of Dante. 100 half-page woodcuts. Large woodcuts decorated initials. Handsome late sixteenth-century French gilt-tooled red morocco. Covers within fillets border, decorated with large cornerpieces and central fleuron. Traces of ties. Smooth spine richly tooled with leafy sprays. Board edges decorated with diagonal gilt fillets. A very fine, wide-margined copy, ruled in red and with a strong impression of the woodcuts. Title-page sligtly browned. Earlier shelfmarks in brown ink on the front pastedown (‘7:49:23:F:3.6.56'; ‘F.6.'); on the recto of the front flyleaf the pencilled note ‘v. Mr. Dibdin Bibliog. Decameron Vol. 2 Sessa £ 120'.

Provenance: on the recto of the front flyleaf monogram in brown ink combining the letters ‘SWG'; Charles Harold St John Hornby (1867-1946; ex-libris on the front pastedown, ‘From the Library of C. H. St. John Hornby, Shelley House, Chelsea'); unidentified coat of arms on the front pastedown; Livio Ambrogio collection.

First reprint of the famous ‘Big nose edition', published by Sessa in 1564, and edited by Francesco Sansovino. The original dedication to Pius ivis substituted with an epistle to the duke of Mantua and Monferrato Giovanni Gonzaga. A beautiful copy, from the celebrated library assembled by Charles Harold St John Hornby, and presented in a nearly contemporary French binding. In 1895 Hornby founded the well-known private press Ashendene Press, and published two handsome editions of Dante's works, respectively in 1902-1903 and 1909, both in the present collection.