LA DIVINA COMMEDIA DI DANTE ALIGHIERI Novamente Corretta Speigata E Difesa Da F[ra] B[onaventura] L[ombardi] M[inor] Conventuale]

Roma: Presso Antonio Fulgoni, 1791. 3 volumes. The first Lombardi edition. This set with Extensive Manuscript Notes on separate leaves bound into each volume, outlining the cantos and the "arguments" of each. All in a fine 18th century hand. With engraved titles to each volume and 3 engraved plates illustrating Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso by Monsignore D. Diomede Asimiro Caraffa. A large and well margined copy. 4to, in lovely period Italian bindings of three-quarter mottled and polished calf over mottled paper covered boards, the spines with raised bands gilt tooled at their borders, olive green morocco lettering labels gilt, all edges marbled to style. [18 manuscript pages], xxviii, 502; [18 manuscript pages], [ii], 523 [1]; [16 manuscript pages], xii, 518, index 519-541, Aggiunta. A very handsome and crisp set, very well preserved, the bindings tight and clean and beautifully presented, the text-blocks clean and crisp and unpressed with some leaves showing the light mellowing or browning normal to the printing. FIRST OF THE FIRST ROME PRINTING CONTAINING THE ENTIRE TEXT, edited by the Franciscan Galdassarre Lombardi (to whom the acronym in the title alludes). The printing defined as "rare and Magnificent" by Mambelli, and which contains the list of textual variants at the end of each volume. According to Mambelli, Lombardi used the 1478 incunable edition to prepare this edition.
A very beautiful and scholarly Italian printing of Dante, with commentary and notes throughout the text and including the defesa of Lombardi. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that the Eighteenth Century saw a revival of interest in Dante and that countless editions were printed, but lists the Lombardi of 1791 as one of the three finest and most noteworthy of that century. The bindings are consistent with fine Italian bindings of the day.