Lana (Iacomo or Iacopo della) Commentary to the Commedia, fragment on vellum, Northern Italy, mid-fourteenth century.
370 x 250 mm., single bifolium, used as a binding cover, probably for a register, text block: 255 x 73 mm, two columns, 55-56 lines, first below top line, fol. 1r and 4v. blind-ruled, text written in dark brown ink in a Gothic hand, three-line penwork initial 'S' fol. 3r, capital letters set out and touched with red, rubricated, headings in red ink at centre of upper margin, modern foliation in upper right corner, some holes with loss of some words or letters, tears to the margin of fol. 2 with traces of its re-use as a binding, outer margin of fol. 1v annotation in Italian, partly legible under UV lamp and dated '1600', in a different hand inscription 'Ming[anti]' in margin of fol. 1v.
⁂ A precious vellum fragment - the central bifolium of a quire - from the Commento to the Commedia by the Bolognese Iacomo (or Iacopo) della Lana, one of the most authoritative Dante commentators of the mid-fourteenth century, who composed his vernacular commentary between 1323 and 1328. The fragment (a bifolium from a vellum manuscript, and re-used in the sixteenth century as a binding cover, probably for a notary's register) contains the commentary to Paradiso Canto VI, chapters 47-52 (fol. 1r) and chapters 52-58 (fol. 1v), Paradiso Canto VIII, chapters 9-11 and the glosses to verses 1-13 (fol. 2r) and to verses 13-26 (fol. 2v).
The vernacular commentary by Iacomo della Lana circulated widely in Northern Italy and was first printed in 1477 in the famous Venetian Vindeliniana, the first edition of the Commedia to contain a commentary, which was wrongly attributed to Benvenuto da Imola.