Beschreibung:

BOCCACCIO, Giovanni (1313-1375). Vita di Dante , in Italian, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [Florence, ?mid-15th century] Chancery 2°, 295 x 215mm. ii + 30 leaves: 1 2 , 2-4 10 , COMPLETE, catchwords, modern foliation i-ii, 1-30 followed here, bounding verticals and top line ruled in plummet, justification: 180 x 143mm, 34-6 lines written in a regular gothic mercantile cursive hand in dark brown ink, thirty-one four-line initials alternately of red or blue with contrast flourishing and a six-line BLUE INITIAL WITH GABLED FRAME AND GROUND OF RED AND BLUE PEN-WORK (repair to lower margin of f.1 affecting several words, and to tear on f.26, small tears to lower edges of most folios, edges darkened, some spotting). Contemporary brown calf over wooden boards, diagonally ruled in blind, spine in 4 compartments, 5 brass bosses on upper and lower covers (upper cover stained, some rubbing and worming, upper joint split at foot, lacking clasps), modern black morocco box. CONTENTS: ff.i verso - ii verso, Prayers for the Exorcism and Benediction of animals, late 16th-century ff.2-29 Giovanni Boccaccio Vita di Dante or Trattatello in laude di Dante . The Trattatello in laude di Dante was one of Boccaccio's later works and, with the Commento on the Divine Comedy , the fruit of his long admiration and study of Dante. This is the first redaction of the Life, known through the poet's autograph in Toledo (Bibl. Capitolare, MS 104, 6), although compared with that manuscript this copy offers variant readings for two passages: P.G. Ricci, G. Boccaccio (Milano-Napoli, 1965), p.1271. V. Branca, Tradizione delle opere di G. Boccaccio , 2 (Rome 1991), p.44