From Florentine publisher Leo S. Olschki’s September newsletter – a new facsimile edition of the 1502 Aldine press edition of the Commedia. The press release is here. Only some is Englished so the first part is hastily put below, as is a closer up photo of my just arrived copy.

It is thanks to Aldus Manutius if the exile Machiavelli was able to read Dante and Petrarch during the halts in his walks in the woods surrounding Sant’Andrea in Percussina, on the border of Florence. The production of “handheld books”(enchiridia) was inaugurated with Virgil in 1501. The format (8vo) was until then dedicated to devotional texts. These small books lack commentary – the reading should run easily for the reader – and are free from the scholarly frills essential for other types of editions. For the Divine Comedy specifically the title – strangely, considering tradition – is not even explained: Dante’s Three Poems

From A Day in a Medieval City by Chaira Frugoni:

One day in Florence Dante had left the house after eating, and while passing through Porta San Pietro, came upon “a smith who was beating iron on the anvil and singing Dante the way one sings a popular poem, and mixing his verses up, shortening some and lengthening others, so that it seemed to Dante that he was receiving a great injury from the fellow.” Without a word Dante went into the man’s workshop and threw his tongs, his hammer, his balances, and all his other implements into the street. When the smith remonstrated loudly at finding himself stripped of the tools of his trade and blocked from exercising his own special skill, the poet replied, “‘You are singing from my work, but not the way I wrote it; I have no other art, and you are ruining it for me.’ The irate smith, at a loss for words, gathered up his things and went back to his work; and after that, when he wanted to sing, he sang of Tristan and Lancelot, and left Dante alone.”
….
On another occasion we meet the poet in Florence wearing a full suit of armor – which we might think unusual, but which was actually not out of place in the dangerous streets of the city: “And wearing armor to protect his throat and his arm, as people then customarily did,” the poet saw a donkey driver transporting garbage, “who was going along behind the donkeys singing the book of Dante, and when he had sung for a bit, he hit the donkey and said ‘Arri (Giddyup).’ Dante accosted him and dealt him a forceful blow on the shoulder with his mailed fist, saying, ‘I didn’t put that Arri in there.'” A lively dispute ensured, with bad language and obscene gestures on the part of the donkey driver, and insulting remarks on the part of Dante.

Both stories cite another book for origin, Franco Sacchetti’s Il Trecentonovelle (pgs 299-302).

From Paradiso Canto XIII (109 starting), with Charles Singleton’s (prose) translation. I’ve checked the several commentaries I have on hand and a number of others through Dartmouth’s Dante Project and can’t find a single line addressing the possible origins or background of the metaphor chi pesca per lo vero e non ha l’arte, only explanations of the metaphor itself. It feels so biblical but I guess I’ve just always assumed a reference on relation to ‘fishers of men’ and the like. I’ve included at bottom Singleton’s gloss on the philosophers and, for curiosity, Cristoforo Landino’s painfully detailed explanation of the metaphor from his 1481 commentary.

E questo ti sia sempre piombo a’ piedi,
per farti mover lento com’ uom lasso
e al sì e al no che tu non vedi:

ché quelli è tra li stolti bene a basso,
che sanza distinzione afferma e nega
ne l’un così come ne l’altro passo;

perch’ elli ‘ncontra che più volte piega
l’oppinïon corrente in falsa parte,
e poi l’affetto l’intelletto lega.

E di ciò sono al mondo aperte prove
Parmenide, Melisso e Brisso e molti,
li quali andaro e non sapëan dove;

Vie più che ‘ndarno da riva si parte,
perché non torna tal qual e’ si move,
chi pesca per lo vero e non ha l’arte.

And let this ever be as lead to your feet, to make you slow, like a weary man, in moving either to the yes or the no which you see not; for he is right low down among the fools, alike in one and in the other case, who affirms or denies without distinguishing, because it happens that oftentimes hasty opinion inclines to the wrong side, and then fondness for it binds the intellect. Far worse than in vain does he leave the shore (since he returns not as he puts forth) who fishes for the truth and has not the art. And of this Parmenides, Melissus, Bryson, are open proofs to the world, as are the many others who went on but knew not whither.

The philosophers:

Parmenide: Parmenides, an early Greek philosopher, was born at Elea in Italy ca. 513 B.C. He is the chief representative of the Eleatic philosophy, in which he was followed by his disciple Zeno; he and Zeno, according to Plato, met Socrates in Athens in ca. 448 B.C. Parmenides wrote in verse his philosophical views On Nature, of which only fragments are extant. Melisso: Melissus, a philosopher of Samos who flourished ca. 441 B.C., was a follower of Parmenides. Only fragments of his writings are extant. Brisso: Bryson was a Greek philosopher mentioned by Aristotle as having attempted to square the circle, a problem which apparently he tried to solve dishonestly by non-geometrical methods (Soph. elench. I, 11, 171b; Anal. post. I, 9, 75b).

And Landino:

Viè più che ‘ndarno: la sententia è questa: possiamo dire che uno sia arriva, quando anchora non ha pensato se la chosa è vera o no; ma quando comincia a investigare, allhora si parte da riva et entra nel fiume. Adunque chome el pescatore se si parte da riva et non ha l’arte del pescare nè anchora gli strumenti apti si parte indarno per che non pigla, chosì chi si mette a investigare el vero sanza dialectica et philosophia et senza le scientie che gle ne possono mostrare s’affaticha indarno. Ma è anchora peggio perchè oltra al perdere la faticha, entra nello errore nel quale non era prima. Adunque è peggio che ‘l pescatore, perchè lui non piglando torna tale quale si partì. Ma chostui torna in piggior grado perchè ha falsa opinione la quale non havea prima.

The opening of Paradiso Canto 2, in the Longfellow translation.

O Ye, who in some pretty little boat,
Eager to listen, have been following
Behind my ship, that singing sails along,

Turn back to look again upon your shores;
Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure,
In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.

The sea I sail has never yet been passed;
Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

Ye other few who have the neck uplifted
Betimes to th’ bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,

Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea
Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the water that grows smooth again.

Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed
Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!

O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,
desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti
dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,

tornate a riveder li vostri liti:
non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse,
perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.

L’acqua ch’io prendo già mai non si corse;
Minerva spira, e conducemi Appollo,
e nove Muse mi dimostran l’Orse.

Voialtri pochi che drizzaste il collo
per tempo al pan de li angeli, del quale
vivesi qui ma non sen vien satollo,

metter potete ben per l’alto sale
vostro navigio, servando mio solco
dinanzi a l’acqua che ritorna equale.

Que’ glorïosi che passaro al Colco
non s’ammiraron come voi farete,
quando Iasón vider fatto bifolco.

From Purgatorio 17 (84-90 and 124-132). I would expect to spend most of my time on the terrace of the slothful.

“Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency
Is purged here in the circle where we are?
Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech.”

And he to me: “The love of good, remiss
In what it should have done, is here restored;
Here plied again the ill-slackened oar;*

But still more openly to understand,
Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather
Some profitable fruit from our delay.
……
This threefold love [of the proud, the envious, and the wrathful] is wept for down below;
  Now of the other will I have thee hear,
  That runneth after good with measure faulty.

Each one confusedly a good conceives
  Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
  Therefore to overtake it each one strives.

If languid love to look on this attract you,
  Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,**
  After just penitence, torments you for it.

“Dolce mio padre, dì, quale offensione
si purga qui nel giro dove semo?
Se i piè si stanno, non stea tuo sermone.”

Ed elli a me: “L’amor del bene, scemo
del suo dover, quiritta si ristora;
qui si ribatte il mal tardato remo.

Ma perché più aperto intendi ancora,
volgi la mente a me, e prenderai
alcun buon frutto di nostra dimora.”
…….
Questo triforme amor qua giù di sotto
si piange: or vo’ che tu de l’altro intende,
che corre al ben con ordine corrotto.

Ciascun confusamente un bene apprende
nel qual si queti l’animo, e disira;
per che di giugner lui ciascun contende.

Se lento amore a lui veder vi tira
o a lui acquistar, questa cornice,
dopo giusto penter, ve ne martira.

*For il mal tardato remo I replace Longfellow’s ‘ill-belated’ with Singleton’s ‘ill-slackened’.

** Singleton’s rendering is clearer here – “If lukewarm love draws you to see it or gain it”

From Purgatorio 9.76-93, with the Longfellow translation. I have a soft spot for Threshold Guardians in myth.

vidi una porta, e tre gradi di sotto
per gire ad essa, di color diversi,
e un portier ch’ancor non facea motto.

E come l’occhio più e più v’apersi,
vidil seder sovra ‘l grado sovrano,
tal ne la faccia ch’io non lo soffersi;

e una spada nuda avëa in mano,
che reflettëa i raggi sì ver’ noi,
ch’io dirizzava spesso il viso in vano.

“Dite costinci: che volete voi?”
cominciò elli a dire, “ov’ è la scorta?
Guardate che ‘l venir sù non vi nòi.”

“Donna del ciel, di queste cose accorta,”
rispuose ‘l mio maestro a lui, “pur dianzi
ne disse: ‘Andate là: quivi è la porta.’”

“Ed ella i passi vostri in bene avanzi,”
ricominciò il cortese portinaio:
“Venite dunque a’ nostri gradi innanzi.”

I saw a portal, and three stairs beneath,
Diverse in colour, to go up to it,
And a gate-keeper, who yet spake no word.

And as I opened more and more mine eyes,
I saw him seated on the highest stair,
Such in the face that I endured it not.

And in his hand he had a naked sword,
Which so reflected back the sunbeams tow’rds us,
That oft in vain I lifted up mine eyes.

“Tell it from where you are, what is’t you wish?”
Began he to exclaim; “where is the escort?
Take heed your coming hither harm you not!”

“A Lady of Heaven, with these things conversant,”
My Master answered him, “but even now
Said to us, ‘Thither go; there is the portal.'”

“And may she speed your footsteps in all good,”
Again began the courteous doorkeeper;*
“Come forward then unto these stairs of ours.”

*I’ve touched up Longfellow’s poorly aging ‘courteous janitor’