Dante's Canzoniere in Britain

The Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri including the Poems of the ‘Vita Nuova’ and ‘Convito’: Italian and English, trans. by Charles Lyell, London, John Murray, 1835.
Taylor Institution Library, VET.ITAL.IV.B.157
Bodleian Library, Toynbee 2160
(copy signed and dedicated by Lyell to Mrs Hooker, neé Maria Sarah Turner, wife of William J. Hooker, Professor of Botany at Glasgow University)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Dante Alighieri. The Early Italian Poets from Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300) : In the Original Metres, Together with Dante's Vita Nuova. London: Smith Elder, 1861.
Taylor Institution Library, VET.ITAL.IV.A.64

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Dante Alighieri. Dante and His Circle : With the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100-1200-1300) : A Collection of Lyrics. Rev. and Re-arranged ed. London: Ellis and White, 1874.
Taylor Institution Library, MOORE.2.F.4

The symbolic title of Canzoniere for Dante’s lyrics was first introduced in Britain by Charles Lyell (1769-1849). His 1835 edition is the first translation of Dante's lyric poetry into English. Lyell translated all the poems that he found in a previous edition of Dante’s lyric poetry, entitled Amori e rime di Dante Alighieri (Loves and Lyrics by D.A., Mantua: Caranenti, 1823).
   The title of Canzoniere emphasises the comprehensive, Platonic reading that Lyell proposes in his edition, which also includes a summary of Plato’s Symposium. The Platonic reading of Dante goes back to other nineteenth-century authors and scholars, such as Arthur Hallam and Percy B. Shelley. However, in the 1842 and 1845 reprints, the title is respectively Poems and Lyrical Poems.
   Lyell was not a professional literary scholar, but he knew and frequented the most important Dante scholars of his time in London. In particular, he became friends with the controversial Italian exile Gabriele Rossetti, so much so as to be the godfather of his son, the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dante Gabriel was a central figure in the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and in Oxford the Ashmolean Museum preserves some of his works. Among these is a watercolour portraying an episode of the Vita Nuova: Dante Drawing an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice’s Death. A particularly significant example of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s interest in Dante is his collection and translation into English verse of early Italian poets. This exhibition shows the first edition (1861, entitled The Early Italian Poets from Ciullo d’Alcamo to Dante Alighieri) and a copy of the second edition of this anthology (1874, expanded and entitled Dante and His Circle) owned by Edward Moore, one of the most celebrated Oxonian Dante scholars.