During 1848, Europe was greatly disturbed by internal commotions, calculated to unsettle thinking men, and more especially those who took an active interest in politics. It is a matter for astonishment, therefore, that Panizzi, whose share in such agitation was by no means inconsiderable, should have found time and inclination to devote himself to literary productions. Nevertheless, indulging in the aspirations for freedom which were then moving nations he yet was able to dedicate much of his time to literature.
Indeed, it is almost incredible how he could, with so much on his brain, have given himself up to the editing of Dante. Of the great Italian poet so much might be written that it would be but irrelevant to this biography to leave the principal mover in it, even temporarily, to dilate on so exalted a subject. We must, therefore, merely observe that Panizzi was deeply impressed with the importance of Dante’s poetry, which excelled all that had preceded it, and was written in the lingua vulgare, only that it might be understood by the people, who delighted in its inexhaustible treasures. Five centuries have elapsed since the great Florentine wrote his Divina Commedia, which has now become the property and admiration of the whole civilized world.
The editions of it are very numerous, but it is with the first four we have now to deal.
The earliest is the Editio Princeps, of Foligno, by Numeister, bearing date 1472. In the same year were also printed one edition at Jesi, by Federico Veronese, and another at Mantua, by Germanus, Giorgio e Paolo. That at Naples was edited by Giovanni Francesco del Tuppo, printed by Reussinger, and appeared three years later.
An idea of the value and importance of the volume edited by Panizzi, at the expense of Lord Vernon (published by Messrs. T. and W. Boone, and printed by Charles Whittingham), may be formed by the mere fact that these first four editions are here united in one, which, to the student, must prove an invaluable boon, as he is thus enabled to perceive at a glance the variations in the text.
These editions can only be found altogether at the British Museum, though separate copies exist in other libraries also.
In the year 1835, Mr. Grenville gave the sum of £60 for the copy printed at Naples, and in 1842 he purchased for £42. 16s. 0d. the Mantua edition, which two copies are now in the British Museum, forming part of his munificent bequest to the Nation.
From Panizzi’s preface we learn that he gave £90 to Mr. Asher, of Berlin, for the Jesi Dante, in which six pages were missing. Fac-similes were made by John Harris, from a copy in the possession of Earl Spencer. Later on, Mr. Winter Jones, at that time Keeper of the Printed Books, purchased another incomplete copy, from which he was enabled to replace four more pages, thus rendering it all but complete.