At the time when these editions appeared, the
orthography of the Italian tongue was not yet established, and its
grammatical inflections not in all cases definitely settled. Printing
had not yet been long enough in use to fix a permanent form upon words.
Moreover, the misprints themselves, which in these early editions are
very numerous, often give hints as to the changes which they may have
induced, or as to the misplacing of letters most likely to occur, and
consequently most likely to lead to unobserved errors of the text.
The style of the printing in these first editions, and the aid it may
give, or the difficulty it may occasion, are hardly to be understood
without an extract. We open at _Paradiso_, xv. 70. Cacciaguida has just
spoken to his descendant, and then follows, according to the Foligno,
the following passage:--
Io mi uolfi abeatrice et quella udio
pria chio parlaffi et arofemi un cenno
che fece crefcer lali aluoler mio
Poi cominciai con leefftto elfenno
come laprima equalita napparfe
dun pefo per ciafchun di noi fi fenno
Pero chel fole che nallumo et arfe
colcaldo et conlaluce et fi iguali
che tutte fimiglianze fono fcarfe.
This looks different enough from the common text, that, for example, of
the Florentine edition of 1844.
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