One of the keystones in the long and multifarious publishing and iconographic history of Dante’s Commedia is unquestionably represented by the edition issued in June 1544 by the leading Venetian printer Francesco Marcolini: La Comedia di Dante Aligieri con la nova espositione di Alessandro Vellutello.

The 1544 Marcolini Commedia was the first edition to contain the important new commentary by the patrician from Lucca Alessandro Vellutello (b. 1473), who had been active in Venice as of ca. 1525. It was also the first commentary on the work to appear after that of Cristoforo Landino had been included in the celebrated Commedia printed in 1481 by Niccolò di Lorenzo, along with engravings related to designs by Sandro Botticelli. Vellutello had established himself as one of the best exegetes of Italian vernacular literature as of 1525, thanks to his successful edition of Petrarch’s Le volgari opere del Petrarca con la esposizione di Alessandro Vellutello da Lucca; this work had been issued by the Nicolini da Sabbio brothers, whose press witnessed Marcolini’s first steps as a printer.

Born in Forlì, in the Romagna region, in about 1500, Francesco Marcolini moved to Venice around 1527, and his activity as a printer continued until 1559, the possible date of his death. Among his patrons, a particularly important role was played by Pietro Zeno, a close friend of the Bolognese architect Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554). Marcolini was therefore entrusted with the printing of Serlio’s monumental Regole generali di architettura sopra le cinque manière de gli edifici, whose Books IV and III were issued from the Venetian press in 1537 and 1540, respectively (the seven parts that comprise the work were published in an irregular order).

In 1540, Marcolini also proposed a second edition of Book IV; on that occasion he issued a handful of copies of both of Serlio’s Books as presentation copies printed on large blue paper (see the complete description of a volume gathering both editions on blue paper here).

Serlio’s Regole represents the first treatise on architecture in which the illustrations assumed primary importance. Indeed, the 1537/40 editions clearly reveal Marcolini’s taste for lavishly illustrated books, which is confirmed by the publication, likewise in 1540, of a work composed by the printer himself, Le Sorti intitolate Giardino de’ pensieri, the most celebrated book of fortune-telling games of the Italian Renaissance, and one of the great illustrated books of the sixteenth century. Although Giorgio Vasari seemed to attribute the numerous woodcuts embellishing the Sorti to Marcolini’s skillful hand, the illustrations can be confidently ascribed to the artist Giuseppe Porta (1520-1575), known as Salviati. A revised edition of the work appeared in 1550.

Marcolini’s printing house was a popular meeting place for eccentric and transgressive writers and poets, and the catalogue of books it printed clearly reflects the creative output of this ‘irregular’ Cinquecento. Well known for having been the publisher of the suspected and later forbidden Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), the Venetian printer also issued works by another author deemed ‘dangerous’: the Florentine Anton Francesco Doni (1513-1514), whose celebrated Marmi Marcolini published in 1552-1553 (see for the description of a fine copy of this edition, once owned by Duke of Sussex Augustus Frederick, son of King George III, here). Marcolini’s close relationship to Doni is further testified by the fact that both were members of the Venetian Academia Peregrina, which the Florentine poligrafo had co-founded in 1550. On its title-pages, the Marmi bears the name of this academy as promoter of the publication.

Defending heliocentrism just nine years after the publication of Copernicus’ De RevolutionibusDoni, Anton Francesco (1513-1574). I Marmi del Doni, Academico Peregrino. Al Mag.co et Eccellente S. Antonio da Feltro Dedicati. Venice, Francesco Marcolin… — Defending heliocentrism just nine years after the publication of Copernicus’ *De Revolutionibus*
**Doni, Anton Francesco (1513-1574).** *I Marmi del Doni, Academico Peregrino. Al Mag.co et Eccellente S. Antonio da Feltro Dedicati.* Venice, Francesco Marcolini, 1552-1553.
See the full description of this copy here.

Despite this impressive range, throughout his career as a printer Marcolini produced only three books dedicated to the three great classics of Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio: Il Petrarca con le osservazioni di messer Francesco Alunno appeared in 1539; Dante’s Commedia followed in 1544, and an Italian translation of Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium made by Giuseppe Betussi came to light in 1556.

In this regard, the most ambitious publishing initiative is certainly the Commedia, which is supplemented by a new textual commentary as well as an impressive visual or pictorial commentary in the form of eighty-seven woodcuts. Each vignette records one or more scenes from the illustrated cantos and closely relates to Vellutello’s glosses, establishing an innovative iconographic program for which publisher, engraver, and commentator seem to have closely collaborated: “While the fifteenth-century blocks could serve as a quick reference for figures in the text, these 1544 blocks are an extension of the commentary, a more instructive form of illustration” (R. Mortimer, Italian 16th Century Books, no. 146).

The illustrative cycle of 1544 is newly designed for this edition, and generally ascribed to the German artist and printmaker Giovanni Britto (Johannes Breit, ca. 1500-ca. 1550). Britto had already worked as an engraver for this Venetian press, as demonstrated in his collaboration for Il Petrarca spirituale by Girolamo Malipiero (1536) and La congiuratione de Gheldresi contra la città d’Anversa by Jan Knaap (1543).

The Morgan Library in New York preserves a series of twenty extensively annotated pen-and-brown-ink drawings illustrating the Inferno and the Purgatorio (see digitized versions here). These drawings were first noticed by Lamberto Donati in 1963, when the series was still in the hands of the London bookdealer J. Irving Davis – already a business partner of the Florentine Giuseppe Orioli – and were ascribed to an unknown Italian artist (L. Donati, “Un commento ad una serie di disegni del XVI secolo illustranti la Divina Commedia”, La Bibliofilia, 65 (1963), pp. 151–87). More recently, Rhoda Eitel-Porter has proposed their attribution to the hand of Vellutello himself, identifying them as the preparatory drawings upon which Britto relied for his woodcuts. Although uncontested samples of Vellutello’s handwriting have not survived, “the drawings do seem to reflect Vellutello’s exegetical preoccupations. Early on Vellutello locates Jerusalem in the middle of the hemisphere. The five drawings, using a steep birds-eye perspective for Hell, all show the city at the top, as does one of the woodcuts. There are also occasional correspondences in wording between texts on the drawings and the published commentary (R. Eitel-Porter, “Drawings for the Woodcut Illustrations to Alessandro Vellutello’s 1544 Commentary on Dante’s Comedia”, Print Quarterly, XXXVI, 2019, pp. 3-17: 12). Further, “the drawings show all the wear and tear – abrasions, losses and holes – of active use, which suggests they were serviceable tools rather than treasures in an art collector’s portfolio” (ibidem, p. 13). The demonstrable wear, holes, etc. on these drawings may indeed be evidence of their use in the printing press as a template for the woodcuts.

Owing to its fine illustrative apparatus, the Marcolini Commedia has long been highly sought-after by Dante collectors, as attested by its early inclusion amongst the most distinguished Renaissance libraries. The 1544 Dante was, for example, preserved in the collection of one of the greatest Renaissance collectors, the Genoese banker Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (ca. 1524-ca. 1612), housed in a marvelous ‘Apollo and Pegasus’ medallion binding executed for him by Niccolò Franzese (cf. A. Hobson, Apollo and Pegasus. An Enquiry into the Formation and Dispersal of a Renaissance Library, Amsterdam 1975, no. 40). Another copy, ruled in red and bequeathed by Henry Davis to the British Library, was once owned by Sir William Pickering (1516-1575), courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, who had a fine binding made for the volume which bore his coat of arms.

The copy we offer here represents the first state of the Marcolini edition of the Commedia, with terzina 64-66 of the Purgatorio’s second canto missing due to an oversight in the printing process, and bearing a remarkable provenance. In fact, its first recorded owner was – as his autograph signature on the front pastedown attests – the great bibliophile Marcus (Marx) Fugger (1529-1597), a member of the celebrated Augsburg banking dynasty, who succeeded his father Anton as head of the family firm in 1560. Fugger amassed an extensive library especially rich in illustrated books. He is also known for having personally bought numerous books in Italy, which he then had bound in Parisian ateliers. The elaborate strapwork, gilt-tooled binding of the present copy may well be included in this group of volumes.

Over the centuries, the Fugger library was dispersed, and books once belonging to him are now scattered amongst various institutional libraries; they are well recognizable, however, by Fugger’s ownership inscription, which is generally inked on the upper margin of the pastedown. Volumes bearing his provenance and still in private hands in the early 1930s were also offered for sale by Munich book dealers Karl & Faber in 1933-1935 (see the Karl & Faber catalogues nos. 7-10, Bibliophile Kostbarkeiten a.d. Bibliothek a.d. Augsburger Patrizien Marcus Fugger). As the brief preface to the first sale catalogue issued by the dealers in May 1933 states, “The wonderful library collected by Fugger, the great Augsburg merchant banker, is today mainly preserved in the Munich State-Library and another great part of it is in Vienna. Only a small part of this collection […] has remained in private possession up to now”. A number of volumes bearing Fugger’s inked inscription had also previously been offered at the second auction of the collection amassed by the great bookseller Édouard Rahir (1862-1924), which took place at Hôtel Drouot in May 1931.

The gauffered edges of the Marcolini Commedia once owned by Marcus Fugger. — The gauffered edges of the Marcolini *Commedia* once owned by Marcus Fugger.

Fugger’s taste as a collector is revealed by the luxurious gilt-tooled morocco bindings of his books, which are generally decorated – as with the present example – with interlacing ribbons. The bindings were executed by leading French binders like Claude de Picques, Gommar Estienne, and the Wotton Binder C, who were also engaged by the outstanding bibliophile Jean Grolier (1479-1569) as well as the Bibliothèque du Roi. A further distinctive element is represented by the fine gilt and gauffered edges, with leaves and fleurons, as in the present copy, whose binding was executed by either Claude de Picques or Gommar Estienne.

A notable addition in the present copy is an extra leaf which was not included in the volume as originally published but was bound here for Fugger as a frontispiece. The leaf bears the woodcut portrait of Dante taken from the Elogia virorum literis illustrium by Paolo Giovio (1479-1565), published in Basel in 1577 by the exiled Italian printer Pietro Perna.

The Elogia woodcuts were designed by the Swiss painter and printmaker Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584), who was sent by Perna to Lake Como in 1569-1570 to produce drawing copies of the famous portrait collection assembled by Giovio. In 1577, Perna published the woodcut portrait of Dante, cut after Stimmer’s designs, in the aforementioned Elogia, together with sixty-seven other portraits of illustrious men of letters, each surrounded by a strapwork frame. In the leaf bound into the present copy of the Marcolini Commedia, however, Dante’s portrait lacks the border found in the original Elogia. The name of the poet is also spelt in the variant form ‘Dante’ instead of the ‘Danthes’ of the Basel publication, and was perhaps stamped separately letter by letter, rather than printed as a single word. This represents an unrecorded issue of the woodcut portrait and may suggest the Stimmer series was issued individually as single-sheet prints. Such an occurrence would not be surprising in the case of Marcus Fugger and his Commedia, if we consider that he was one of the greatest collectors of prints of all ages.

Marcus Fugger’s copy of the Marcolini Commedia, with a portrait of Dante by Tobias Stimmer as an unrecorded single sheet.Alighieri, Dante (1265-1321). La Comedia di Dante Aligieri con la nova espositione di Alessandro Vellutello.... Venice, Francesc… — Marcus Fugger’s copy of the Marcolini *Commedia*, with a portrait of Dante by Tobias Stimmer as an unrecorded single sheet.
**Alighieri, Dante (1265-1321).** *La Comedia di Dante Aligieri con la nova espositione di Alessandro Vellutello....* Venice, Francesco Marcolini, June 1544.

Twenty-one woodblocks belonging to the illustrative cycle produced for the Commedia of 1544 were later re-used by Marcolini for illustrating Anton Francesco Doni’s Inferni, which was issued by the Venetian printer in 1553.

Fol. LL1r of the fourth part of Anton Francesco Doni’s I Marmi del Doni… (Venice, Francesco Marcolini, 1552-1553), reproducing the title-page of Doni’s Inferni to announce the forthcoming publication. This is followed by a description of the latter’… — Fol. LL1r of the fourth part of Anton Francesco Doni’s *I Marmi del Doni…* (Venice, Francesco Marcolini, 1552-1553), reproducing the title-page of Doni’s *Inferni* to announce the forthcoming publication. This is followed by a description of the latter’s contents on fol. LL2r and LL2v and is probably the first time in the history of printing in which the imminent publication of a new work is promoted through the insertion of its soon-to-be-released title-page within another published work.
See the full description of this copy here.

After Marcolini’s death in 1559, the entire woodcut apparatus was employed by the Sessa brothers for the famous Commedia of 1564 – known as the edition ‘del nasone’, i.e., ‘of the big nose’, owing to the large portrait of Dante on the title page – which included the commentaries of both Landino and Vellutello, and was reissued in 1578 and 1596.

The Sessa Dante of 1564 enjoyed immense popularity, whereas much less is known of another Commedia which appeared in Venice likewise in 1564: the re-issue of the Marcolini Commedia by Francesco Rampazetto. Unrecorded in the Dante bibliography, it does however represent an episode of the greatest significance in the afterlife of the Marcolini edition, giving precious insight into the history of Venetian press. The Rampazetto re-issue is a volume of absolute rarity which we are very proud to be able to present: this will be the topic of our next post, in one week.

The Marcolini Commedia of 1544

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