Stultifera Navis (Ship of Fools) is the Latin translation of Das Narrenschiff, a satirical allegory based on Plato’s metaphor of a ship where all the crew members think that they should be captain. While Plato was criticising Athenian democracy in his Republic, here the author Sebastian Brant mercilessly denounces the shortcomings of his age. It quickly became a very famous humanist work: first printed in Basel in 1494, it was immediately popular, with seven editions produced in that year alone. By 1500, several more editions had been printed numerous times in German, Latin as well as French and Dutch.

This edition was translated by Brant’s colleague from Basel, Jakob Locher: a dramatist and philologist, and Emperor Maximilian I’s Poet Laureate from 1497.

Binding description
Eighteenth-century diced calfskin on boards sewn on five cords. Covers decorated with double gilt fillets to form a border with blind-stamped roll, also to form a border, and concentric gilt panel; gilt roll on board edges and turn-ins. Spine with five raised bands and double silk headband in green, decorated with gilt tools and titling. Textblock trimmed and gilted. Endpapers of blue and undecorated paper.