Pietro Bembo's Edition of Dante's 'Commedia': ms. Vat. Lat. 3197 and the Aldine Editions of 1502 and 1515

The only vernacular literary works in the remarkable series of Latin and Greek classics published in Venice by the scholar-printer Aldus Manutius (1449/50-1515) in 1501-1503 were the editions of Petrarch's poems and Dante's 'Comedy' which had been prepared for Aldus by the Venetian humanist scholar and patrician Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), 'Le Cose Volgari di Messer Francesco Petrarcha' in July 1501 and 'Le Terze Rime di Dante' in August 1502. These were not the first printed editions of the poetry of the two great Trecento writers, but they were quite different to those which had gone before. Like the Virgil which inaugurated the new format in April 1501, they were set in the beautiful italic font invented for Aldus by Francesco Griffo and were unencumbered by the commentary often surrounding texts in the larger format of earlier editions. Strikingly new also was their presentation in the smaller - and thus portable - octavo size, which had previously been used in printing only for prayer books and other devotional works.