Dante Alighieri: La Commedia.
Mantua: Georgius de Augusta and Paulus de Butzbach, for Columbinus Veronensis, 1472.
Fol. [112 2-68 710 8-108 116]. [92] leaves (1/12 blank).
ISTC id00023000; GW 7959; Goff D23; BMC VII 928 (IB. 30613); CIBN D-9.
| GIP number: | D1 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bf.1.5 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Provenance: | Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1970 in Guillaume de Bure, Bibliographie instructive: supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat, 2 vols (Paris: 1769). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 230 livres 1 sou; see Dessain-Hunter correspondence (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 25r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Al.2.4”. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century blue goatskin; covers decorated with a triple gold-fillet border, a gold fleuron at each corner; gold-tooled spine; gilt-edged leaves; marbled endpapers; flyleaves have watermark "MGIS FIN". Size: 345 x 238 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 329 x 230 mm. |
| Annotations: | Occasional early marginal annotations, but so washed out as to be illegible. Pencil note (by T.F. Dibdin?) on front free endpaper “Very rare before Ld Sp[ence]r saw it he thought his own copy had been the only one in Britain”. |
| Decoration: | Initials supplied in red throughout (many faded); large initial “N” at beginning of text of Inferno left blank; text in two columns, each column enclosed within red ink rules throughout. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting bifolium 1/1.12. |
