[ALIGHIERI, DANTE]. La Commedia. Illustrata da Ugo Foscolo. Londra [London]: Pietro Rolandi, 1842-1843.
Hardcover. First edition thus. Complete in four volumes. Full leather. Octavo (230 x 140mm), pp. (8), [xxx]-[i.e. xxviii], (4), 468; (8), 395; (8), 560; (8), 418. Italian text. Exquisite contemporary full morocco, bound and signed by Wiseman, with intricate gilt ruled and tooled covers, edges and inner dentelles. All page edges gilt. Half-titles present. Illustrated by Ugo Foscolo with 10 plates outside the text (portrait of Foscolo, view of the Chiswick cemetery, where Foscolo was buried, portrait of Dante, interior of Dante's tomb, Dante's tomb in Ravenna, and plans of Hell, Purgatory and Paradiso, portrait of Dante at the age of 25 and a facsimile of a manuscript by Foscolo).
Condition: A near immaculate set and exquisitely bound. Collated complete. The covers are excellent with all hinges intact, and gilt remaining bright. The textblock is largely very clean, with some light toning and foxing restricted mostly to initial and terminal leaves. Contemporary owner signature neatly inked to front endpaper of each volume. Scarce.
Listing note: This wonderful edition is due to the endeavours of Giuseppe Mazzini, who signed in the introduction "Un' Italiano" ["An Italian"]. In 1825 Foscolo had published, also in London, for the publisher Pickering, the "Discourse on the text and on the different opinions prevailing on the history and critical amendment of Dante's Comedy", it was to be a large edition of the "Commedia", designed in five volumes. Foscolo presented the commentary on the "Inferno" to the editor, but as regards "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso" he handed over incomplete manuscripts and in some parts barely sketched. Foscolo's death in 1827 finally brought the project to a halt, and the manuscripts remained in Pickering's warehouses. Ten years later, Mazzini came into possession of Foscolo's papers and, after a long process of reworking, was able to publish the work: the first volume (1842), contains the 1825 "Discourse", preceded by an unpublished "Prefazioncella" by Foscolo; the second (1842) the "Inferno"; the third (1843) "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso", in a single volume, given the smallness of the Foscolian notes; the fourth (1843) the chronology, the life of Dante, the list and description of the codes found in bookshops and libraries, and the index. [I Ottolini, Foscoliana Bibliography, n. 585; Collection Foscoliana Acchiappati, n. 155].
