Erwin Panofsky called the book "a remarkably complete mirror of human life", based upon the "universality of Brant's self-righteous surliness and the picturesqueness of his metaphors" (Panofsky, p. "he first original work by a German which passed into world literature helped to blaze the trail that leads from medieval allegory to modern satire, drama and novel of character" (PMM). In his "Ship of Fools", Brant describes the voyage of a ship bearing one hundred fools, to the fools' paradise of Narragonia, thereby satirizing the follies of his time including representatives of every human and social type.
One of literature's most famous satires: before Goethe's "Werther" arrived on the scene, this work was the most successful book ever published in Germany. The first six illustrations are coloured by a contemporary hand. This is the first edition to contain the outstanding narrative woodcuts by Tobias Stimmer (1539-84), showing the fools and their companions in Renaissance costume.
A fine, later Latin edition of the famous "Narrenschiff", originally published in German verse in 1494 and translated by the author's student Jacob Locher in 1497. Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards with bevelled edges and two brass clasps, lozenge-shaped floral roll-tools enclosing plate-stamps of "Justitia" and "Lucrecia", upper cover bearing monogram "ALG" and date "1573". (Bound with) II: Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus. With woodcut title vignette and 115 woodcuts in the text (6 of which in original hand colour, 1 partly coloured).
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