Italian Renaissance Manuscripts

4600 Bd Ms 354 +

Latini, Brunetto, 1220-1295 (also known as Brunetto Latino).

Il tesoretto di ser Brvnetto Latini, [14--?]

Manuscript poem in Italian, written mainly in iambic trimeter. Outer edges of the (paper) pages have prickings to guide the scribe in aligning the lines of text. The manuscript has been identified as Florentine, and is written in double columns. Some corners and inner edges have been repaired, with no apparent loss of text in those leaves. Bound in plain modern cloth.

The text is incomplete, beginning in chapter 2 and terminating in chapter 16, in accordance with an editorial division of the poem into twenty-two chapters.

 

4629 Bd Ms 4 +

Purgatorio. Canto 31-32. Selections

Purgatorio: Canto 31, lines 45-145, and Canto 32, lines 1-90, ca. 1350.

Florentine manuscript fragment (one leaf), ca. 1350. On vellum.

~~Early humanist hand. Compare with the preceding Tesoretto and especially with the facsimile of Yates Thompson 36.

 

4629 Bd. Ms. 2

[Vita nuova]

Incomincia La Vita nova di Dante Aldigieri Fiorentino ... / scritta per Ia. Ant. Benalio Trivigiano.

1513.

Manuscript written at Rome by Jacopo Antonio Benalio. Pages 139-148 are in a later hand, and page 148 has an 18th century note on the Vita nuova. Other contents (as listed on first leaf) include Canzoni di Guido di Messer Cavalcante, Canzoni e sonetti di Messer Cino da Pistoja, Canzoni di Gitton d'Arezzo, and Argomento ... della p[ri]ma parte della Commedia di Dante intitolata l'Inferno. Bound in worn calf, with covers gilt in an intricate pattern.

The Argomento, added in a later hand, is by Giovanni Boccaccio and is written in terza rima.

~~This manuscript and likely the preceding one of Brunetti’s Tesoretto were evidently copied for private, probably scholarly use, as opposed to being commissioned by patrons. The Benalio manuscript in particular is a compendium of selections made by the copyist from texts (printed or manuscript) available to him in early sixteenth-century Rome. Benalio (1489-1549) was himself a published poet; aside from sonnets, poems of his in terza rima have been preserved. See http://rasta.unipv.it/index.php?page=view_autore&idautore=181

http://rasta.unipv.it/index.php?page=view_poesia&idpoesia=1614

http://rasta.unipv.it/index.php?page=view_det_libro&idlibro=4

See also http://ali.unipv.it/ with links to two sites covering the Antologie della Lirica Italiana: MAMIR (Manoscritti Miscellanei Rinascimentali) and RASTA (Raccolte a Stampa). These sites are based at the Università di Pavia.

 

4648 Bd Ms 5 +

Bruni, Leonardo, 1369-1444.

Comincia il libro della vita studii e costume di Dante … e di … Petrarcha….

15th cent.

Vellum binding constructed from leaf of unidentified ms.

Petrarca

 

Francesco Petrarca: Rime. Title page of the Sonetti. Mauscript on vellum, ca. 1460.

4648 Bd Ms 24 +

(Detailed description at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/collections/medieval_calkins.pdf, p. 27)

 

 

Una primera edizione

 

 

Incipit Page of the First Edition

of The Divine Comedy,

Foligno, 1472,

printed by Johann Neumeister

 

Italian Renaissance Printed Books

PQ4302.A72+

Divina commedia. 1472

[Foligno: Johann Neumeister, 1472]

First edition. Issued in a leather case.

"Nel mille quatro cento septe et due nel quatro mese adi cinque et sei questa opera gentile impressa fue Io maestro Iohanni Numeister opera dei alla decta impressione et meco fue Elfulginato Euangelista mei:"--Colophon.

Leaves [1], [84], [168], and [252] blank. This copy lacks the four blank leaves. Leaf [251] has been supplied in facsimile. Paradiso XX. 49-54 and XXI. 46-48 are omitted in this edition.

“This copy contains numerous marginal notes in manuscript, said to be the work of Luca Pulci, Italian poet of the 15th century….”— Catalogue of the Dante Collection presented by Willard Fiske, p. 3. [The established dates for one Florentine poet named Luca Pulci are 1431-1470, thus ruling out his authorship of the marginalia.  If a Luca Pulci is responsible (and not the poet Luigi, 1432-1484, brother of the Luca named above), such a Luca may have been a nephew or other relative of Luca number 1.]

One of “three ‘first editions,’ printed in 1472 in Foligno, in Mantua, and in Jesi, [with the Foligno] now regarded by bibliographers as the earliest.”—Catalogue of the Dante Collection, p. 3.

 

PQ4302.A81++

La Commedia

Florence, Nicolaus Laurentii, Alamanus, 30 Aug., 1481.

[372] l. 5 illus. 34 cm.

The first Florentine edition, with the commentary of Cristoforo Landino. Text enclosed by commentary.

Leaf [370b] (Colophon): … IMPRESSO IN FIRENZE PER NICHOLO DI LORENZO DELLA MAGNA A DI. XXX. DAGOSTO. M.CCCC.LXXXI.

Capital spaces, with guide-letters. Large ornamental capital in red on leaf [16a].

With errors in printing and omissions.

With engravings and spaces for engravings. There are only 19 engravings made (for the first 19 cantos of the Inferno); paper copies have usually 2, sometimes 3 engravings printed directly on page of text (the first three cantos); the others are mounted.

Landino, Cristoforo, 1424-1504.