1507, Venice: BARTOLOMEO DI GIOVANNI DA PORTESE

This edition illustrates the persistence of the 15th-century commentary tradition, which, in spite of the popular success of Aldus' revolutionary presentation of the simple text in octavo, will continue to find a public among the theologians and other learned students of the poem. Although printed seven years after the turn of the century, the book could easily pass for an incunabulum from a typological perspective. For example, the book bears only a primitive title page. Textually, the book merely reproduces the inferior text of 1497, and bases its illustrations on those of the Venetian editions of the 1490s. Of particular note are the rather curious capitals. Printers often had a trademark series of such capitals which they used in different texts, often without any particular regard for appropriateness to the work in which they appeared.

The materially outdated character of the book suggests the anachronistic status of the 15th-century vulgate within the altered 16th-century cultural environment. The book's publication nevertheless marks the starting point for a process of renewal and renovation of the commentary tradition which culminates in the first 16th-century commentary by Alessandro Vellutello, published in 1544 by Francesco Marcolini.