La Divina Commedia di Dante. Passo passo riscontrata, con lunga e scrupolosa diligenza, su i Testi delle piu approvate Edizioni, antiche e moderne, e da ogni tipografico neo tersa ed emendata. Da G.B. Boschini. Londra, Da' Tortchj di P. da Ponte, 1808.
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A very rare edition for which we could not trace any sales examples. A reference is made to this edition in a bibliography of representations of Dante in English art [1], where the portrait frontispiece here is after Raphael's 'Disputa' of Dante held in the Vatican. The Zotti edition of the same year is roughly similar and was also printed in London but is regularly encountered in commerce. We could trace just 11 institutional holdings worldwide and just 4 in the UK. We could not trace an ESTC reference for this edition and so it's unlikely to be held at the British Library's collection.
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Size: 70 x 108 mm (approx., each)
Condition:
[vi, 169pp]; [i, 170pp]; [i, 168pp]
Full calf leather, uniformly bound with gilt compartments and gilt bordered boards. A little wear to joints but with all boards securely attached. The set is without shelf lean. Some wear at the heads of spines including minor loss. Bindings a little rubbed and discoloured but generally very good. Without any bookplates or ownership inscriptions. Text blocks clean throughout though mildly toned with endpapers foxed.
A very good set.
[OCLC 26071419].
Literature:
[1] Toynbee, P. (1919). Dante in English Art: A Chronological Record of Representations by English Artists. Annual Reports of the Dante Society, 38, 1–112, pp.11.
[2] Havely, Nick, 'Seeing the Seer: Victorian Visions', Dante’s British Public: Readers and Texts, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (Oxford, 2014; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Aug. 2014)
