Beschreibung:

pseudo-METHODIUS, Saint. Revelationes divinae a sanctis angelis factae . - Wolfgangus Aytinger. Tractatus super Methodium . Edited by Sebastian Brant Basel: Michael Furter, 14 February 1500. Chancery 4° (200 x 143mm). Collation: a-g 8 h-i 6 (a1r title, a1v prefatory letter by Brant to Johannes Meder, a2v heading and woodcut, a3r preface, a4v heading and woodcut, a5r text, i6r colophon, i6v blank). 68 leaves. 36-38 lines, printed shoulder notes. Type: 156 . G, 6:106G, 1:83G, 4:64G. 61 woodcuts from 55 blocks coloured by an early hand, Maiblumen, lombard and other woodcut initials. (Tear in b6 extending slightly into woodcut, repaired without loss, some light browning.) 17th-century vellum. Provenance : 16th-century annotations on e8. SECOND ILLUSTRATED EDITION, with the full series of 55 woodblocks (with 6 repeats). The series had appeared in Furter's first edition of 1498, but many copies (Schäfer, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, etc.) contain only 54 of the 55 blocks, and are missing Schramm XXII, 568. The woodcuts are stylistically close to those in the Passio Meynradus (lot 171) and may be by the Master of the Verardus; one woodcut (on g1v) was used in Brant's Das Narrenschiff (see lot 156). Attributed to the 4th-century saint Methodius but probably dating from the 7th century, the Revelationes were reworked by the Augsburg monk Wolfgang Aytinger. In his hands they became an agent for exciting Christian wrath against the Turks. Among those whose revelations are given authority are Merlin, Hildegard, Birgitta, and Petrus de Alliaco. Brant, as in many books he wrote or edited, had illustrations added in order to reinforce visually the verbal message of the text. He writes in the preface that "in pictures the ignorant may see that which they ought to follow; in this they who are illiterate read." BMC III, 786 (IA. 37813); Goff M-525; Schreiber 4649; Schramm XXII, p.43.