DANTE Alighieri; [Pietro BEMBO ( editor )]. Le terze rime. [ Title verso :] Lo’nferno e’l Purgatorio e’l Paradiso di Dante Alaghieri [ sic ].

£11,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

The First Aldine Dante – With a Portrait of the Poet DANTE Alighieri; [Pietro BEMBO ( editor )]. Le terze rime. [ Title verso :] Lo’nferno e’l Purgatorio e’l Paradiso di Dante Alaghieri [ sic ]. Venice: Aldus Manutius . 1502. 8vo. Eighteenth-century speckled calf, arms of William Bagot, first Bagot Bromley blocked in blind to boards, spine gilt in compartments with gilt crowned fleurs-de-lys; ff. [243] of [244]; a7 b–z8 A–G8 H4; lacking f. a8 (Inferno III, lines 79–136), f. l2 blank, quires a and b and f. s8 supplied (during the eighteenth century or earlier); italic letter, capital spaces with guide letters, woodcut Aldine device to final verso; joints repaired, front free endpaper previously laid down, obscuring bookplate of Charles Ford (recently renewed with bookplate and label relaid); slight marginal dampstaining to head of Inferno VI–XV and to inner margin of Inferno XXXIII–Purgatorio IV, some browning and light soiling to first and final leaves, the odd mark; else a very good copy; sixteenth-century underlining and reading marks to annotation to c. 50 pp., early inscription to final leaf ‘?andai in Farnesina … al sinodo’; title-page with sixteenth-century ink portrait of Dante in profile within border enclosing printed text (see below), inscribed ‘Φρὰνκισχῶς Αλφάνῶς Νεοπολιτσίν εποιει Εποῦ κυρὶακου’, eighteenth-century armorial bookplate of Charles Ford to front pastedown with motto ‘Noli irritare leones’ (Franks 10949), ?nineteenth-century ownership inscription ‘R. W

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.