The first edition of the Comedy with commentary and the first to contain Boccaccio's Life of Dante, one of the most important Dante biographical sources to date. Published only five years after the princeps (Foligno, 1472), it was created by Cristoforo Berardi from Pesaro and printed by Vindelino de Spira in Venice.
The bibliographers define this first edition accompanied by commentary with the expression Vindelina of the Comedy printed in Venice in 1477 by the printer Vindelino da Spira. The commentary is falsely attributed to Benvenuto da Imola (1330-1388). Dante's text is followed by two chapters by Bosone da Gubbio (born at the end of the 13th century) and by Iacopo Alighieri (Dante's younger son, born at the end of the 13th century) which are often found together both in manuscripts and in prints . While Iacopo focuses on the structure of the poem, Bosone exposes its allegorical meaning. The text of the Comedy is preceded by the Life of Dante, written by Boccaccio and followed by the Creed attributed to Dante. The editor of the edition is Cristoforo Beraldi from Pesaro (active in the 15th century). The fact that the commentary was in Italian led scholars to believe it to be a translation by Beraldi of Benvenuto da Imola's Latin commentary. It was subsequently considered an independent work by Beraldi himself and was finally recognized for that of Iacomo Della Lana (post 1278-post 1358), the first printed commentator on Dante's text, which was heavily altered in the initial part. The fiction was probably due to the fact that the reputation of Benvenuto da Imola was such as to favor the success of the edition in those years.
Mambelli 7: «careful in the typographical execution[...]. The commentary, falsely attributed to Benvenuto da Imola, is anonymous but is the work of Iacopo della Lana, while Benvenuto da Imola wrote, as is known, his glosses in Latin in 1376, and these, which were believed to have been translated from uncertain into the vernacular, they are completely different from Rambaldi's Latin glosses produced by Muratori in Antiquitates italicae medii aevi"
GW 7964; BMC V, 248; IGI 358; Goff D, 27; De Batines I, pp. 23-29; Mambelli, 7; Leg, 382.