La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, manoscritta da Boccaccio
Roveta [Rovetta]: Negli Occhi Santi di Bice, 1820. Very Good. Item #12335
Roveta [Rovetta]: Negli Occhi Santi di Bice, 1820. Three octavo volumes in one. 612 pp. + 3pp. emendazioni. Continuously paginated. Frontis portrait depicting the "Three Crowns" of Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
Vellum binding decorated in gilt with hand-painted cover depicting Dante holding a copy of the Divine Comedy next to the entrance of Hell, with Mount Purgatory, Florence, and the Heavens in the background. Scene is after the painting by Domenico di Michelino (1465). Manuscript quotation from Italian poet Angelo Poliziano to rear. Decorative endpapers; all edges red. (Pagination skips a couple numbers before Purgatorio and Paradiso title pages, but all is consistent with and complete compared to the individually-bound volumes at the National Library of Naples.)
Small patches of red discoloration to top and bottom of spine. Front joint cracked four inches down from top with the rest tender, but overall binding is holding soundly. A few waterspots to frontis and some sparse foxing throughout, else pages unmarked. Auction record from 1922 laid in at front. Overall an exceptionally attractive example of a 19th century vellum painted book.
Price: $1,750.00