Existing comment:
ATTRIBUTED TO ALBRECHT DÜRER
German, 1471 - 1528
On the Uselessness of Books, in Sebastian Brant, Stultifera Navis (Ship of Fools)
(Basel, 1497)
bound volume with 117 woodcut illustrations
William B. O'Neal Fund, 2016
Written by the Nuremberg humanist Sebastian Brant, the Ship of Fools was one of the most successful books of the early modern period and remains a fundamental document of thought on the eve of the Reformation. Disguised as the voice of a fool, and thus beyond serious reproach, the author systematically satirizes every institution, pretension, and foible of society. At the opening of this chapter, a scholar leafs through the pages of a tome, his seriousness undermined by the fool's cap, duster, and myopia. The verse, in first person, explains that he loves books and delights in showing off his library but understands not a word" |