Lot 2: BRANT, SEBASTIAN.

Stultifera navis [in the Latin version of Jakob Locher, with additional material by Locher and T. Beccadelli]. (Basel: Johann Bergmann de Olpe, 1 March) 1498

Condition Note:

4to (203 x 155mm.), 163 leaves (of 164), 30 lines plus headline, Roman letter with headings in Gothic, woodcut illustrations (some full-page), woodcut printer's device beneath colophon, old vellum, without final blank, quire ?⁴ misbound at end, y1 torn with loss of lower part of leaf, several quires strengthened in gutter, paper flaws on i3, a few leaves from a shorter copy, t1 torn and repaired, new endpapers

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

H 3751; GW 5062; Goff B1091
CATALOGUE NOTE

Originally published in 1494 in German, this is one of many incunable editions of this early bestseller, "a satirical work containing knowing references to classical writers, intended to entertain a new sophisticated reading public" (Steinberg, Five hundred years of printing, p.65). Despite benefitting from the development of printing with moveable type, Brant satirises the proliferation of printed texts with a chapter on useless books.