Dante

by Edmund G. Gardner

D. The Minor Works

The Convivio or Convito was first printed at Florence in 1490. Eighteen canzoni (erroneously numbered as fourteen) were published at the end of a Venetian edition of the Commedia in November, 1491. Fifteen genuine Dantesque canzoni, with others wrongly ascribed to him, are contained in a collection printed at Milan and at Venice in 1518. The first partially complete edition of Dante’s lyrical poetry is contained in the first four books of Sonetti e canzoni di diversi antichi autori toscani in dieci libri raccolte, edited by Bernardo di Giunta at Florence in 1527. The Vita Nuova was first printed at Florence in 1576; but its lyrics had been given in the first book of the 1527 Sonetti e canzoni. The De Vulgari Eloquentia was published in Trissino’s Italian translation at Vicenza in 1529, and in the original Latin at Paris in 1577; the Monarchia in 1559 at Basle. The latter work had been translated into Italian by Marsilio Ficino in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The Letter to Henry VII. was first published in an old Italian version in 1547; in its original Latin by Witte in 1827.

The Epistle to Can Grande was first published in 1700, the Eclogues in 1719. The Letters as a whole were edited by Witte in 1827 and by Torri in 1842.

Special editions and studies. (a) Vita Nuova. Critical edition by M. Barbi (Florence, 1907); with notes and commentary by M. Scherillo (Milan, 1911, reprinted with the Canzoniere); G. Salvadori, Sulla vita giovanile di Dante (Rome, 1906); Vita Nuova and Canzoniere, text, translation, and notes by P. H. Wicksteed and T. Okey (“Temple Classics”). For the “dolce stil nuovo,” V. Rossi, in Lectura Dantis, Le Opere Minori (Florence, 1906), and Parodi, Poesia e storia nella D.C. A new edition of the Vita Nuova is published by K. McKenzie (London, 1923). (b) Rime or Canzoniere. M. Barbi, Studi sul Canzoniere di Dante (Florence, 1915); G. Zonta, La lirica di Dante (in Miscellanea dantesca, supplement 18-21 of Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, Turin, 1922); E. G. Gardner, The Lyrical Poetry of Dante (in preparation). For the tenzone with Forese F. Torraca, Nuovi studi danteschi (Naples, 1921), and A. F. Massèra, Sonetti burleschi e realistici dei primi due secoli (Bari, 1920); for the tenzone with Dante da Maiano, S. Santangelo, Dante Alighieri e Dante da Maiano (in Bullettino della Società Dantesca Italiana, N. S., XXVII., 1920); for the canzone of the Tre donne, Torraca, op. cit., and Carducci, Opere xvi (“Poesia e Storia”). The majority of the Rime are translated by Wicksteed in the “Temple Classics” volume cited above. (c) Convivio. Translation by W. W. Jackson (Oxford, 1909); translation and commentary by Wicksteed in the “Temple Classics”; Wicksteed, From Vita Nuova to Paradiso (Manchester University Press, 1922). (d) De Vulgari Eloquentia. Critical edition by P. Rajna (Florence, 1896); facsimile reproduction of Berlin MS., L. Bertalot, Il Codice B del “De Vulgari Eloquentia” (Florence, 1923); studies by F. D’Ovidio, Versificazione italiana e arte poetica medioevale (Milan, 1910); translation and commentary by A. G. F. Howell in “Temple Classics Latin Works of Dante”; C. Foligno, Dante, the Poet (Brit. Acad. Annual Italian Lecture, 1921). (e) Monarchia. C. Cipolla, Il trattato “De Monarchia” di D. A. e l’opuscolo “De potestate regia et papali” di Giovanni da Parigi (reprinted in Gli studi danteschi di Carlo Cipolla, Verona, 1921); F. Ercole, L’unità politica della nazione italiana e l’Impero nel pensiero di Dante (in Archivio storico italiano, LXXV., Florence, 1917), and Per la genesi del pensiero politico di Dante (in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, LXXII., Turin, 1918); E. G. Parodi, Del concetto dell’Impero in Dante e del suo averroismo (in Bull. d. Soc. Dantesca Italiana, N.S., XXVI., Florence, 1919); A. Solmi, Il pensiero politico di Dante (Florence, 1922); C. Foligno, The Date of the Monarchia (in Dante, Essays in Commemoration, University of London Press, 1921); translation and commentary by P. H. Wicksteed in “Temple Classics Latin Works of Dante.” (f) Epistolae. P. Toynbee, Dantis Alagherii Epistolae (The Letters of Dante, emended text, with introduction, translation, notes, etc., Oxford, 1920); F. Torraca, Le lettere di Dante (in Nuovi studi danteschi); E. Moore, The Genuineness of the Dedicatory Epistle to Can Grande (in Studies in Dante, Series III.). (g) Eclogae. P. H. Wicksteed, Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio (London, 1902); G. Albini, Dantis Eclogae, etc. (Florence, 1903). (h) Quaesto de Aqua et Terra. Edited and translated by C. L. Shadwell (Oxford, 1909); ed. V. Biagi, with critical dissertation (Modena, 1907); E. Moore, Studies in Dante, Series II. (Oxford, 1899); Wicksteed, translation and commentary in “Temple Classics Latin Works of Dante.”