[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.
