Beschreibung:

BRANT, SEBASTIAN]. La grand nef des folz, Livre de grand proffit a l'instruction de toutes gens, lequel est aorné de figures, pour monstrer la folie du monde. Lyons: James Meunier [i.e., James or Jehan Monnier], [c. 1520]. 8vo, 176 x 111 mm. (6 7/8 x 4 3/8 in.), early twentieth-century finely diaper-grained maroon morocco, gilt panels with fleur-de-lys tools at corners and centers, turn-ins gilt, g.e., extremities rubbed, repairs to inner margin of title, one touching type ornament in first line, one minute wormhole to woodcut title border, a few other neat small mostly marginal repairs, faulty printing to center of woodcut on f. F3, strengthened in pencil . Collation: A-M4 (A1r title, A1v-A2r Aux lecteurs , A2v-M4r text, M4v colophon with printer's device). 48 leaves. Bâtarde type (preface: 93 mm., text: 137 mm.), 94 THREE-QUARTER PAGE WOODCUTS (each c. 112 x 83 mm.), printed one to a page above 7 lines of octosyllabic French verse, woodcut printer's device at end. EXCEPTIONALLY RARE EDITION of an abridged version of Pierre Rivière's verse translation of Das Narrenschiff , the first in French, first printed in Paris for Marnef and Philippi (Manstener) in 1497 (GW 5058). The vigorous and expressive woodcuts were first used in the Lyonese printer Guillaume Balsarin's edition of Jean Drouyn's prose adaptation of the work, which includes Rivière's verses at the head of each chapter. These cuts are copies of those used in the de Marnef-Philippi 1497 edition, which were themselves copied from the blocks used in the original Basel editions. The woodcut illustrating the verse preface, by a different engraver, was also acquired by Monnier from Balsarin's stock: it appears in the latter's 1503 edition of Le Roman de la Rose (reproduced in Baudrier, XII, p. 60). Although the standard bibliographies record no other editions of this small format abridged version of Rivière's translation, the woodcuts reappeared in later full-length Lyonese editions of the Nef des fols (e.g., François Juste's 1530 edition, Jean d'Ogerolles's 1579 and 1583 editions) and in other works (cf. the title woodcut from the Pantagrueline Prognostication [Lyons: F. Juste 1532], reproduced in Rawles and Screech New Rabelais Bibliography , p. 113). Of the present edition the only copy known to Baudrier (I, p. 288 bis) was the Château de Lobris copy, sold in Munich by Ludwig Rosenthal, 22 April 1895, lot 1129. A transcription of the Lobris catalogue entry is written on the verso of an undated ALS from Seymour de Ricci to an unidentified correspondent, loosely inserted in this copy, stating that he also knew of none but the Lobris copy. There are no copies in the BN, the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyons, or the British Library, not in NUC, Adams, Brun, or Brunet. Provenance : Eighteenth-century ownership inscription on title (illegible) -- This is possibly the Lobris copy, rebound: the sale catalogue describes that copy as bound in calf, with "a curious woodcut" mounted inside the front cover. The Burton copy was bound c. 1900-1925 and a mounted piece was formerly laid down onto the front pastedown. Above his bookplate Henri Burton noted "seul ex. connu".