The National Edition of Dante's Works
After the Società Dantesca Italiana's foundation on July 31, 1888, the Central Committee, as early as at the meeting of June 26, 1889, decided to establish a critical edition of the Commedia and of the minor works.
In 1896 the Society published Pio Rajna's edition of De vulgari Eloquentia; in 1907 Michele Barbi issued the critical edition of the Vita Nuova. More difficult was, at least in those years, the solution of the problems regarding such works, with their complex and rich tradition, as the Rime and the Commedia. These were entrusted by the Society respectively to Michele Barbi and to Giuseppe Vandelli. Barbi in his Studi sul Canzoniere di Dante set forth the problems regarding the edition of the Rime (1915).
After some initial surveies on the part of the Society to develop a systematic review of the codices, based on 396 different passages opportunely selected by M. Barbi, Vandelli begun to elaborate his own editorial criteria, and, starting from the nineteenth century's 'vulgata', he followed up with further experimental efforts.
During 1902 and the following years, these efforts lead to various provisional editions. In those years also the remaining works were entrusted to expert editors: the Convivio to Ernesto Giacomo Parodi and Flaminio Pellegrini; the Monarchia to Enrico Rostagno; the Egloghe and the Epistole to Francesco Novati (and then, after his untimely death, along with the Questio, to Ermenegildo Pistelli).
In 1921 the Society was able to provide, for all the works, much improved texts, edited with great care (under the direction of Barbi) in a single volume (reissued by the Society in 1960 and in 2011 in an anastatic edition by Le Lettere).
After Rajna's death in 1930, Aristide Marigo was entrusted with the new edition of De vulgari Eloquentia, an edition that became necessary because of the discovery of the singularly important Berlinese codex. In 1932 the Society published the first volume of the National Edition, a new edition of the Vita Nuova, edited by Barbi. Although the preliminary labors of the remaining Dante's works never ceased, the outbreak of the Second World War made impossible the necessary bibliographical and codicological researches.
After the conflict, during the presidency of Mario Casella, the edition of the Monarchia (issued in 1965) was entrusted to Pier Giorgio Ricci. After Casella's death, the new Central Committee, chaired by Gianfranco Contini, in 1956 conferred on Augusto Mancini the responsibility for the editing of the minor works in Latin and on Pier Giorgio Ricci that for the Monarchia, and entrusted to Domenico De Robertis the edition of the Rime.
Shortly afterwards, Giorgio Petrocchi was entrusted with the edition of the Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata. In 1957 Francesco Mazzoni took place to Augusto Mancini for the edition of the Epistole, the Egloghe and the Questio, while the edition of the Convivio was assigned to Franca Brambilla Ageno.
In 1965, in addition to the Monarchia, the publishing house A. Mondadori published the first two of the four volumes dedicated to the Commedia, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi (the Purgatorio and the Paradiso were issued, respectively, in 1966 and 1967), while of the remaining works, the critical editions of the Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, edited by Gianfranco Contini, were published in 1984.
In the same year, with the expiration of its contract with the publishing house A. Mondadori, the Society entered into its collaboration with the Florentine Publishing House "Le Lettere", which issued in 1994 a new revised edition of the Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata edited by Giorgio Petrocchi, still in four volumes, and in 1995 the critical edition of the Convivio, in three volumes, edited by Franca Brambilla Ageno and reflecting the entire known textual tradition.
In the year 2002 is printed off a critical edition of the Rime edited by Domenico De Robertis, in 3 volumes (5 tomes). In the year 2009 is printed off a new critical edition of the Monarchia edited by Prudence Shaw.
In May, 1968, Gianfranco Contini, after resigning the presidency of the Society, was named by the Central Committee Honorary President and Director of the National Edition, appointment that he maintained until his death, in 1990.
Since then, the Committee for the National Edition of Dante's Works has been composed by the Central Committee of the Society which creates, for each work, a special editorial committee.
The following list, dedicated to the National Edition of Dante's Work and to the publications edited by the Society, forms part of the catalogue of the Publishing House "Le Lettere".
National Edition of Dante's Works
Edited by the Società Dantesca Italiana, previously directed by G. Contini
I. Vita Nuova a cura di M. Barbi (esaurito); Vita Nova a cura di G. Gorni (in prep.)
II. Rime a cura di D. De Robertis
• I documenti (Tomi I e II)
• Introduzione (Tomi III e IV)
• Testi
III. Convivio a cura di F. Brambilla Ageno
• Introduzione (Tomi I e II)
• Testo (Tomo III)
IV. De Vulgari Eloquentia a cura di P. Rajna (esaurito)
V. Monarchia a cura di P.G. Ricci (ed. Mondadori); Monarchia a cura di P. Shaw
VI. Questio de Aqua et Terra a cura di E. Peruzzi; Epistole, Egloge (in prep.)
VII. La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata a cura di G. Petrocchi (2a ristampa riveduta, 1994)
• Introduzione
• L’Inferno
• Il Purgatorio
• Il Paradiso
VIII. Il Fiore e Il Detto d'Amore attribuibili a Dante Alighieri a cura di G. Contini (ed. Mondadori); Fiore. Detto d'Amore, a cura di P. Allegretti