Beschreibung:

BRANT, Sebastian (1457-1521). Stultifera navis. Translated form German into Latin by Jacobus Locher Philomusus (1471-1528), in collaboration with the author. With woodcut illustrations by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Augsburg: Johann Schönsperger, 1 April 1497.
BRANT, Sebastian (1457-1521). Stultifera navis. Translated form German into Latin by Jacobus Locher Philomusus (1471-1528), in collaboration with the author. With woodcut illustrations by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Augsburg: Johann Schönsperger, 1 April 1497. 4° (155 x 102mm). Collation : a-s8 t4 (a1r title with woodcut, a1v Locher's epigrams to the reader and letter to Brant dated 1 Feb. 1497, a4r verses by Brant and Locher to each other, to the printer and on Narragonia, a7v Locher's prologue, b1r Brant's verse prologue and argument, b3v text, t1v Bergmann's colophon, t2r index with Schönsperger's added colophon). 148 leaves. 30 lines and headline with foliation. Type: 7:175G, 8:76G, 10:98G, 11:65G. 119 woodcuts, including 6 repeats, at least 70 of these by ALBRECHT DÜRER , the others by master of Haintz Narr, the master of the Gnad Herr and two other anonymous woodcut artists. (Small holes repaired in the first and last few leaves, one small hole in the title touching the plate mark, marginal repair in i7.) Olive morocco by J. Clarke with his stamp, sides with gilt triple fillet border, spine gilt in compartments, gilt morocco label, gilt turn-ins and edges (minor rubbing). Provenance : S.A. Thompson Yates (bookplate dated 1894). Augsburg issue of the first Latin edition of the Ship of Fools , published a month after Bergmann's Basel edition. Brant's book is 'the most important of a long line of moralizing works in which the weaknesses and vices of mankind are satirized as follies' ( PMM 37). Brant populated a ship bound for the fools' paradise of Narragonia with 100 fools representing all positions and levels of society, including his own occupation as writer by opening his work with a chapter 'on the uselessness of books'. The fine woodcut illustrations are those commissioned for the first edition (in German) of 1494, also printed by Bergmann at Basel, at least 70 of which are now attributed to Dürer, who resided in Basel for a few months in 1494. 'The woodcut illustrations created for the Das Narrenschiff are of immense density and tenseness. Since there was no iconographical tradition for this newly conceived text, the subjects and scenes of the illustrations had to be created entirely new. The images presented are of such convincing force that their equal in design had never before been seen' ( A Heavenly Craft , p. 63). The Ship of Fools is the first literary work to announce the discovery of the New World, which is not surprising, since it was Bergmann who published the first German edition of the Columbus letter, announcing his discovery of the New World, in 1493. HC *3748; Bod-inc B-508; GW 5056; BSB-Ink B-818; Schreiber 3569; Goff B-1088.