1506, Florence: FILIPPO GIUNTI
The Aldine Dante was to become the new vulgate, but not before a final valiant
attempt by the Florentines to reclaim their author with this edition of
the poem, commonly referred to as the Giuntina Dante. As before in the case
of Landino, the response was to come from the most authoritative level of
Florentine culture. On this occasion, the text was prepared by the greatest
living Florentine poet of the time, Girolamo Benivieni (1453-1542). Like
most educated Florentines of his generation (including Machiavelli), Benivieni
possessed a lifelong love and deep knowledge of the poem, informed by profound
religious sensibilities nurtured through his association with the Florentine
Neoplatonic academy and his friendship with the philosopher Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola. Benivieni was also among the first intellectuals of humanistic
Florence to convert to the impetuous and prophetic preaching of Girolamo
Savonarola. Benivieni introduces his Dante edition with a chapter in terza
rima entitled, "Canticle
of the Florentine Jeronimo B. in praise of the most excellent poet Dante
Alighieri."
In textual terms, the Giuntina is the most significant 16th-century edition
of the poem besides the 1502 Aldine and the Crusca Academy edition of 1595.
Benivieni evidently took great care with the text (for the non-Tuscans had
again raised the stakes) and on many occasions improves upon the Aldine
text, preferring readings which have since proved authoritative. Nevertheless,
Benivieni based his correction of the text upon the 1502 Aldine, and it
is significant that the 1506 Giuntina was to be the last complete imprint
of the poem to appear in Florence during the 16th century, until the Crusca
Academy edition of 1595. Dante had meanwhile become an "Italian"
classic. And the process by which the Florentine poet became an Italian
classic during the 16th century roughly parallels the one by which the essentially
Florentine language of the 14th-century Florentine classics, Dante, Petrarch
and Boccaccio, became the national literary language of all Italy during
the same period.
The work's publisher, Filippo Giunti (c. 1456-1517) was the head of the
Florentine branch of a celebrated family of printers. His brother Lucantonio
had been established as a bookseller in Venice since1477, while a nephew
worked in Lyons. The Giunti house and shop in Florence was located near
the chapel of S. Biagio at Badia. His production from 1497 to 1514 featured
Latin and vernacular octavo editions printed in an italic close to that
made popular by Aldus. In fact, around 1507, Aldus, who had obtained exclusive
rights to the use of his italic type from both the Venetian senate and the
papacy, sued Filippo Giunti for copyright infringement. While Giunti did
not stop printing in italic, he does seem to have avoided Aldus' titles
after that date.
