La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri – FACSIMILE FINDER 2022

La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri – FACSIMILE FINDER 2022 – Italian and English editions - LIMITED COLLECTOR EDITION

A PICTORIAL REVIEW

Published by Giovanni Scorcioni of Facsimile Finder, San Marino
Limited edition of 700 copies.
Signed by artist George Cochrane.
Italian edition hand-lettered and illustrated by George Cochrane.
English edition printed with a font resembling Cochrane’s hand-writing, but illustrated by George Cochrane.
Designed by Giulia Fogliani.
All pages fully illustrated.
33 pages plus three Maps of the Afterlife hand-coloured and then printed in facsimile.
Printed offset.
Black Bodoni binding with black page edges.
Custom Dante wrap-around overlay design with gold highlights.
3 silk ribbon page markers: Black/Hell, Bronze/Purgatory, Gold/Heaven.
Black slipcase with gold printing.
Supporter’s name printed in the backers list.
30.9x25.9cm.
384 pages
Pre-release price US$249

I own both the English and Italian versions of the Collector edition.

The English and Italian editions are identical in illustrations, appearance, binding and format, only differing in the text. The Italian is hand-written, the English in a typeset font that resembles the hand-writing in the Italian edition.

As the Italian edition is the hand-written one, that will feature in the pictures below, with comparative pages of the English edition scattered amongst the Italian.

A simpler bound cheaper, and three more elaborately and expensively bound editions were also available out of the total print run of 700 copies in each of Italian and English. Some editions are still available from Facsimile Finder.































































































































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the this series can be viewed here.

Thanks for posting. The colors have a Blakean quality. Some echoes stylistically of Blake's engraved poems as well.

I collect editions of Dante, and though this edition is not for me, it's nice to see so many detailed photos of it. Your work here is appreciated.

>2 abysswalker: I agree. >1 wcarter: Thank you.

>2 abysswalker:
Do you happen to have Ashendene's Tutte le opere di Dante Alighieri in your collection?
I would sell off most of my library to acquire it... Despite the many editions out there, it's the only one who gets "it perfectly right" for me. What's your favourite edition in your collection?

>3 SebRinelli: re: Ashendene Dante, I wish! I actually have a rule against buying books that I cannot read (which precludes Dante in the original except in the case of a bilingual edition), but I would break this rule in a second for the Ashendene were it to become available.

Favorite edition owned... that is a hard one. I prefer the work of the modern fine press movement generally, so my collection doesn't include anything antiquarian.

For editions of the Divine Comedy that I currently own, the 1933 LEC might come out on top. It was designed by Mardersteig the master and the construction quality and typography is both understated and impeccable. It does not feature my favorite translation, but it is not bad either.

For the Vita Nuova, my current favorite is probably the perfect little edition published by George Bell in 1902 and printed by the Chiswick Press. Beautiful red initials, quirky but attractive typography that suits the odd layered autocommentary nature of the work, and handsome paper that feels like (and probably is) laid.

Is the Italian version a modern Italian translation?

>3 SebRinelli: I'm rather fond of the Nonesuch Press La Divina Commedia myself. Probably because that's the edition I have. *grin* The Botticelli illustrations are rather nice, though.

>1 wcarter: It's a shame the artist didn't complete the series with Thornwillow. The Thornwillow edition of Inferno is SOOOO much better than this. Unfortunate. This one is poorly printed and bound.

I love the Tallone edition of The Divine Comedy. This is Spectacular. IMO

https://www.talloneeditoreshop.com/tallone/en/all-titles/160-la-commedia-secondo...

>7 FvS:

This is one of the very few (only?) Thornwillow publications I regret purchasing. I love the large quarto size and the red half-morocco and paste paper over boards binding is spectacular. The problem? The hand-printed text is difficult and tedious to read. Unfortunately, owning a book that one dislikes reading is akin to asking:

"Aside from THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?"

Why is it difficult to read? Because my eye has difficulty tracking each sentence as a straight line across the page and it is not a fluent read. Additionally, the pseudo-text is extremely tiring, a significant eye strain to read. Finally, the original artwork in the borders of each page is overwhelming and much too busy in the same manner the elaborate Edward Burne-Jones wood engravings overwhelm the text block of the Kelmscott Press 'The Works of Chaucer'. I can appreciate the originality and the courage to attempt something completely different but, ultimately, it did not work for me.

I watched the YouTube video of Cochrane speaking with Luke Pontifell posted on Thornwillow's website, but seeing this version of it, I'm a bit confused. Particularly from the above's colophon stating that the book was "written, drawn, and colored by hand from Dec. 2014 to June 2021." Was it not published by Thornwillow before 2021?

Is this the correct timeline of publications? Cochrane illustrated and lettered it (in Italian and English), so there is a manuscript version of it somewhere. Then Thornwillow published a letterpress facsimile of this manuscript. Then Facsimile Finder published an offset facsimile of it.

Was this a project that was done with Thornwillow already on board well before the manuscript was completed, i.e., was it funded by TW?

Apologies in advance for my confusion. I hadn't paid attention to recent publications until recently.

>8 dlphcoracl: I agree that the lettering in this case is very taxing on the eyes. It would be one thing if this were a short work, but it's not. There's a very cool edition of "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" published by Arcadia Press (maybe 1972?) that is essentially a calligraphed version of the poem, and that's about the limit to how much hand-lettering I can take at once. (I also give that version additional leeway because of the fantastic handmade paper by Philip Rowson.)

>9 DenimDan: In the briefest of summaries, all three were originally planned with Thornwillow, but there was a bit of a falling-out (nothing too dramatic) and Cochrane went with a different publisher.

I am actually curious about Cochrane's original manuscript as well, though - Thornwillow's "Inferno" purports to be hand-lettered in both languages, and of course displays the English and Italian side-by-side while the Facsimile finder edition uses a typeface for English and has the languages split into seperate volumes. It almost seems like Cochrane might've started over to some extent after the Thornwillow editions.

>9 DenimDan: This version uses a completely different translation than the TW one - the Singleton prose translation. That's a major reason I purchased it, as I already have the FS LE with the poetic Kirkpatrick translation. Both are contemporary translations. I don't recall which translation was used for the TW version but I think it was a poetic one. In addition, numerous pages are colored in this version. I don't know if the line artwork for the Inferno is identical between the 2 versions as I don't have the TW version. Does anyone know this?

The "official" reason given for the switch to Facsimile Finder was that Cochrane thought that letterpress was not best suited to reproducing his art and hand lettering. There was a prior thread here (don't recall the title offhand) where someone noted that there was a dispute between Cochrane and TW. Both Griffin from No Reply (who was at TW at the time) and Cochrane weighed in and reading between the lines I suspect what happened was that Cochrane was to be paid in copies of the book, more copies than usual , but most of the copies were unbound sheets (which perhaps Cochrane was not expecting) - so there may have been some misunderstanding. But of course, I don't know exactly what happened.

I purchased the Collector edition as a supplement to the FS LE. It works very well for this purpose, as I can read contemporary poetic and prose translations (I try to avoid public domain translations when possible) at the same time, with additional artwork and coloring as well. Not too worried about the hand lettering being hard to read as I would be reading a canto at a time in most cases. Despite a few negative comments here, I'm quite happy with this purchase at the price I paid. The Collector edition was anywhere between $249 - 289 depending on when you bought it, and is a good value IMO. Interestingly, if the entire Divine Comedy were published by TW, I may not have bought it due to the much higher expected price (since I bought the FS LE), or faced a hard decision between the two.

>11 punkzip: I just went to check which translation Thornwillow used, and it's not obvious on the product page (shame!). According to The Whole Book Experience blog, Thornwillow uses the Anthony Esolen translation, which is indeed a recent verse (iambic pentameter) translation (that I have not read but am now curious about).

>12 abysswalker: One reason to use a prose translation for the type of illustrated work this is, which Cochrane noted, is that it is easier to integrate the words with the illustrations - as otherwise the lines could not be broken up.