DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321) - La Divina Commedia. Florence: All'insegna dell'ancora, 1817-19.   A copy with fascinating provenance which belonged to the Anglo-American actress and writer Frances Anne Kemble and her American husband Pierce Mease Butler. Butler married Kemble in 1834 after meeting her in Philadelphia around the time he inherited some large American tobacco plantations and consequently a large number of slaves. Kemble, strongly opposed to slavery, kept a famous diary of one of her visits to the plantations in which she expressed the horror for the state of life of the people and in which she railed against those who tried to justify slavery. The incompatibility between husband and wife led to divorce in 1849 and it was only after the outbreak of the civil war in 1863 that Kemble published her "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839" published both in America and in England. Pierce Mease Butler was one of the richest men in the United States, but he squandered his fortune estimated $700,000. He was saved from bankruptcy by the sale, on March 2-3, 1859, of his 436 slaves at Ten Broeck Racecourse, outside Savannah, Georgia. It was the largest slave auction in US history and it earned him more than $300,000 (equivalent to about $9 million today).   This is the well-known edition of the Divine Comedy illustrated by 125 neoclassical engravings "printed in a limited number of copies" (Mambelli 113). The fourth volume of the work contains the life of Dante written by Leonardo Aretino and Annotazioni alle tre Cantiche taken from different Codices translated by Abbot Renzi.   4 volumes, folio (470 x 315mm). Engraved plates by Giovanni Masetti, Giovanni Lapi, Innocenzo Migliavacca, Lasinio Filio and Benucci from drawings by Luigi Ademollo and Francesco Nenci, engraved portrait of Dante on the first 3 titles (foxing). Contemporary half red calf over decorative paper with gilt decorations on covers, spines and edges (some rubbing to joints and extremities, scome scuffing). Provenance: Frances Anne Kemble (ownership inscription; 1809-1893 Victorian English theater actress and writer) - Butler Place (bookplate; Pierce Mease Butler 1810-1867, American husband of Fanny Kemble and heir of tobacco plantations). (4)

Estimate € 500 - 800

Sold € 480