51 x 29 mm. Half-title, engraved frontispiece, title printed in red and black. Contemporary brown morocco gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut, watered silk doublures and endleaves, stamp-signed by Richardson (very slight rubbing to extremities); slipcase.

The Hoepli issue of Dante's Divine Comedy, printed in minuscule 2-point Didot type (so-called "flies' eye" type), "thought to be the smallest ever employed...[and] said to have injured the eyesight of both the compositor and the corrector" (Spielmann).  Because only 30 pages could be printed in a month, the work took nearly 5 years to complete. After "1,000 copies were printed and the type was destroyed."(Welsh 2168). Spielmann 114.