Information
Milan, Ludovicus and Albertus Pedemontani, for Guido Terzagus, 1477-'78. In 2°. In three parts dated: I) 27 Sept. 1477; II) 22 Nov. 1477; III) 9 Feb. 1478. First part with prefatory letter dated 1 Mar. 1478. 370 x 270 mm. Four splendid initials in bianchi girari with gold leaf, colored in purple, light blue and green , initial caps in red, light blue and silver, pagination in ancient pen at the upper corner, binding in full rigid parchment from the 18th century with title on a red tag and gold decorations, initial fascicle a little loose, delicate restorations on the first leaf and at the beginning of the first Canticle, always marginal, reinforcement in the center of the last leaf containing the register. Provenance: coat of arms with black cross within a shield on a blue background, red transverse band with 4 golden flowers; on the back cover, a faint but partly legible inscription "Wellesley Sale at Sotheby's Nov 1866". It probably refers to the Rev. Henry Wellesley, a wealthy collector, whose library was sold by Sotheby's on 12-16 November 1866.
Specialist Notes
Martino Paolo Nibia, known as Nidobeato after the assassination of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (26 December 1476), conceived the project, financed by the Milanese nobleman Guido Terzago, of a printed edition with commentary of Dante's Comedy (Milan, Ludovico and Alberto Pedemontani, 1478).
"The genesis of the edition, known as Nidobeatina, is narrated in the dedicatory to William VIII (cc. 1r-1v): having turned to the Comedy «inter magnarum rerum curas ex cede nepharia divi principis Galeacii ingruentes», Nibia found in it a «lenimen maximum», captured by the poetry and the strength of the poem, a true summa of human knowledge. To make the Comedy accessible to «docti pariter et indocti», he decided to accompany it with a commentary. Among those known to him (he names eight), he chose the one in the vernacular by the Bolognese Iacomo della Lana, preferred for linguistic reasons («Iacobus Lanaeus materna eadem et Bononiensi lingua sorge est visus»). The fourteenth-century model is however profoundly revised with «thick and notable» interventions (Dionisotti, 1965, p. 370), which include the interpolation of new glosses, scathing judgments on characters and events fifteenth century, and of many quotations from the Bible and from classical authors, but also from other Dante commentators (Pietro Alighieri and Guido da Pisa). The result is a new product, with which later exegetes such as Cristoforo Landino and Alessandro Vellutello compared themselves." (Treccani on line, sub vocis) .
"It is the famous edition known as Nidobeatina.(...) 48 verses per full page, Roman characters for the text, Gothic for the commentary". Mambelli, n.8 (p.16).
Goff D28; IGI 359; Madsen 1331; Walsh 3090; Bod-inc D-011; Sheppard 4918; Pr 5896; BMC VI 738, XII 52; GW 7965.