[1515], [Venice]: [GREGORIO DE' GREGORIIS DA FORLI]


Gregorio de' Gregoriis da Forlì was an extremely prolific printer. He turned out more than one hundred editions between 1505 and 1528. He is noted as a publisher of music texts, and also for the first book to be printed in Arabic characters in Italy, the Horologium breve. His lone edition of the Divine Comedy, however, is not one of his more innovative productions; rather it belongs to another class of editions for which de' Gregoriis is also noted: imitations -- not to say counterfeits -- of other printers' works. In this case, he virtually reproduces Aldus' second edition of the Comedy, whose editorial success de' Gregoriis evidently hoped to share.

This particular copy is also interesting for the pointing fingers drawn in the margins which provide insight into how Dante was read during the Renaissance. Here the reader has highlighted two proverbial expressions of Dante's guide Virgil from Inferno XXIV: "... sitting on down or under coverlet, no one comes to fame (47-48)"; and "... a fit request should be followed by the deed in silence" (77-78). Dante's poem, as with many other literary classics, has often been reduced by readers to a sourcebook for familiar quotations and moral maxims.