Lot 94: BRANT, SEBASTIAN

Stultifera navis. Basel: Johann Bergmann de Olpe, 1 August 1497

4to (8 x 5⅝ in.; 203 x 143 mm). Types 1:109R (text), 2:180G (chapter headings), 3:77R (marginalia), collation: a-sυ8, t-xυ4, yυ3=159 (of 160, without final blank) leaves, 30 lines plus headline, 117 large woodcuts including 5 repeats, by Albrecht Dürer, the Master of Haintz Narr, the Master of the Gnad Herr and two other anonymous artists, woodcut printer's device at colophon leaf; lightly browned throughout, title somewhat soiled, some marginal thumb-soiling, some small marginal dampstains, top edge cut close catching some foliation marks, two contemporary pointing hands and some marginalia, leaf h1 guarded. Modern vellum, manuscript title on spine. Tan morocco drop-box.

Goff B-1090; HC 3750; GW 5061; Schreiber 3571; see PMM 37 (citing the 1494 edition)

First enlarged edition of the translation by Jacob Locher, with prologues by him and two epigrams by Thomas Beccadelli. This classic satire of the follies of human vice and weakness, went through 26 editions by the end of the incunable period, with versions in German, Latin, Dutch and French, and continued in popularity into the sixteenth century.

"The 'Ship of Fools' was the first original work by a German which passed into world literature ... and helped to blaze the trail that leads from medieval allegory to modern satire, drama, and the novel of character" (PMM).

First published in German by Bergmann in 1494, the first edition of Locher's Latin translation was printed by Bergmann on 1 March 1497; three pirated reprints were then made before the present edition, Bergmann's second, appeared.

The magnificent woodcuts are those commissioned for the 1494 edition, and Winkler attributes as many as seventy-three to the young Dürer who resided in Basel for a few months in that year. To the original series are added about a dozen new cuts which Bergmann had already used in his second German edition of 1495, and in the first Latin edition of 1 March 1497. This original Basel series was as influential as Brant's text, with all subsequent editions deriving from it.