The Divine Comedy, Dante’s description of his journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, was written during the last thirteen years of the poet’s life. The Foligno edition, shown here, was printed by Johann Neumeister (fl. 1470-1495), and is one of the two first editions of the Divine Comedy ever published. Thus the Foligno edition was printed only twenty years after the Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1454), which was the first printed European book. This place in the early history of printing is a mark of the great poem’s importance and influence during the Renaissance.
