Lot 129: BRANT, Sebastian (1458-1521). Navis Stultifera. Basel: Nicolaus Lamparter, 15 March 1507.

4° (196 x 149mm). Title printed in red and black with woodcut, 113 large woodcuts, a few with touches of early hand-colour, woodcut device to colophon. (Two wormholes to the first few gatherings, light soiling.) 19th-century tree-calf, red morocco label on flat spine (corners and extremities rubbed, front joint starting at head). Provenance: ink marginalia in one or more early hands, including occasional German translation, a few small drawings, and underlining, some of which has been rubbed to highlight the whole line -- collation note at end initialed 'S.H.' -- Frederick Perkins of Chipstead Place, Kent (armorial bookplate) -- Thomas Edward Watson (bookplate; by descent to the present owners).

Brant's highly influential satire cataloguing the follies of human weakness and vice was first published in German in 1494. The woodcuts are those used by Bergmann in the first edition of 1494, with the addition of an ornamental left- or right-hand border to all but two of the woodcuts. As many as 73 have been attributed to Albrecht Dürer, who resided in Basel in 1494. The text of the present edition is a version with commentary of Locher's Latin translation, written in verse by the great scholar-printer Badius Ascensius. Adams B-2672; Renouard II, p. 83.

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