Baldassarre Lombardi. Una nuova edizione del suo commento dantesco

This article presents the new critical edition of the Divine Comedy edited by Baldassarre Lombardi (late eighteenth century), which is significant for several reasons. Officially printed in Rome in 1791-92, it marked the first ecclesiastical approval of the poem, thanks to the support of Ennio Quirino Visconti, who called Dante a "classic" and encouraged the Church's reappropriation of the work, including for anti-Jesuit purposes. Lombardi, while remaining close to the Crusca text, offers an innovative and rich commentary, broad in philological, literary, and theological scope, which Foscolo considered the most useful of his time. His edition enjoyed widespread success in the nineteenth century and influenced Dante's international reception. Today, the commentary is accessible online, albeit incomplete, necessitating the new critical edition. Finally, Lombardi's editorial approach—with centralized text, numbering, footnotes, and italicized references—anticipates models still in use today.