| Although printed nearly three hundred years after the manuscript copy of the Epistles of St. Paul, this printed edition of Dante's grand vernacular text adheres to the same format of text surrounded by commentary. Here Dante's words are bordered by wide margins, filled with Cristoforo Landino's commentary on the Divine Comedy. Because this work is printed, however, the interpretation is fixed and codified--there is less likelihood that handwritten marginal comments would be carried forward in the next printed edition of this work. Thus printing served to establish a definitive version that was less personal and more universal. |
