Dante Alighieri. Le Terze Rime, [edited by Pietro Bembo], collation: a-z⁸ A-G⁸ H⁴, italic type, initial spaces with guide-letters, l2 blank, woodcut printer's device to final verso, pen and red ink portrait of ?Dante in profile, with Greek inscription ?‘For Francisco the Neapolitan, drawn by Alphanios [?Eios] the Priest’, traditionally understood to have been executed c.1555, occasional early ink marginalia, lacking a8, sigs. a & b and S8 ?from another copy, some water-staining, spotting and finger-marking, lightly browned, 18th century armorial blind-stamped calf, gilt (dulled and rubbed) spine in compartments, lacking label, covers detached, worn at extremities, 8vo (166 x 98mm.), [Venice], [Aldus Manutius], [August, 1502].

⁂ First Aldine edition, second issue (with printer's device to final verso). It was the first small format edition of Dante, and was edited by the Venetian scholar, poet, and literary theorist Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547).

Literature: Adams D83; Ahmanson-Murphy 59.5; Renouard 34:5; EDIT 16 CNCE 1144.

Provenance: ?'For Francisco the Neapolitan, drawn by Alphanios [?Eios] the Priest' (16th century Greek inscription to title); R. Washbourne' (18th century ink inscription to head of title); D.S. Robertson (20th century book label to front pastedown).