Esopi appologi siue mythologi cum quibusdam carminum et fabularum additionibus Sebastiani Brant
“NE LEGERIS PROHIBITUM”
Basel: Jakob Wolff of Pforzheim, 1501. First edition of Brant’s verses.
Quarto in 8s and 6s (11 11/16” x 8 1/8”, 297mm x 208mm): binder’s blank, a-b8 c6 d8 e6 f8-n6 o8 p-s6 (s6 blank); A-B8 C-D6 E8 F6 G8 H6 I8 K6 L4 M6(–M6 blank), binder’s blank [8s $5 signed, 6s $4 signed; –a1; l4 and l3 swapped; B6 bound between B3 and B4]. 203 leaves (Appologi: 124, Additiones: 79). With 335 wood-cuts integral with the text. Collated identical to the Fairfax Murray copy (despite his mis-summation).
Bound in XIXc straight-grained black morocco with a wide gilt border of rolls and fillets. On the spine, five pairs of raised bands flanking red morocco inlays gilt. Title gilt to the second pale. Gilt roll to the head, tail and edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Marbled end-papers.
Slight bumping to the fore-corners, but externally near fine. Text-block washed but not excessively so (happily removing some ink censorship or obliteration). Repairs to 25 leaves[1] with a further 6 leaves[2] remargined. Partially-repaired hole and tear to C4 with loss to the woodcut (recto) and two four or so words over three lines (verso). Manuscript initials added in ink to A4v, A6v, B3r Some marginalia have been washed out, but are partially legible on a half-dozen or so pages. Bookplate of “L A” flanking the Tree of Life encircled by the serpent with the motto “ΤΟ ΞΥΛΟΝ ΤΟΥ ΓΙΝΩΣΚΕΙΝ ΚΑΛΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΝΗΡΟΝ” to the front paste-down.[3]
The transmission of many ancient works is a tale of loss and rediscovery. Aeschylus’ plays are the prototypical example of this phenomenon; they were “forgotten” by the West until the XVc, when a manuscript containing them was brought to Italy by a refugee from sacked Constantinople. Aesop — perhaps a fictional figure, but one associated with a set corpus of texts, as were Homer, Hesiod, Hippocrates et al. — is traditionally said to have flourished in the late VII–early VIc bc. The brief fables that are widely called Aesopic were popular throughout the ancient world, and were translated into and disseminated in Latin at a relatively early date. Though adapted and reshaped, the Aesopic corpus remained a part of European culture more or less without cessation through the modern era.
Whereas the incunable period of printing (some describe 1501–1520 as the “post-incunable period”) saw the important editiones principes — first printed editions, usually recensions — of many Classical texts, the 1478–1479 Milan princeps of Aesop is not of particular (philological) note. Because Aesop had stayed, as it were, above ground in the intervening millennia, the fables did not particularly need to be unearthed and reconstructed. Consequently, editions of Aesop became vehicles for other things. The present volume replicates, in its first part, the lovely woodcuts (reversed) of the Steinhöwel’s Ulm edition. Its innovation is the commentary and editing of Sebastian Brant (Brandt; ca. 1457–1521), although an early owner of the present volume — along with many early readers of this edition — found his selection of fables to be unacceptable, and defaced or obliterated text and images.
The work, however, is in two parts. The first is the Esopi appologi (an apologus or apologue being a Latin word for “fable” that here works as a macaronic pun on apologia (ἀπολογία) or “defense”), the second is the so-called Aesopus-Additiones, Brant’s modern fables in the Aesopic mode. This second part was the source of the book’s negative reputation; at the upper edge of A2r an annotator has written “Ne legeris prohibitúm” (you should not read it; it is forbidden), and there are additional admonitions at D3r (“Non legas,” you should not read, against a struck-through paragraph), D3v (“Vix legas,” you should hardly read, “Non Legatur,” it should not be read with a ligature), D4v (“Non legas,” you should not read). Many of these leaves — and more within the Additiones — appear to have been rather savagely sliced by a pen-knife as well; a sign of the annotator’s vehemence.
Clearly, however, the book was read. Surviving marginalia on B4v show an engaged reader in the XVIc — i.e., before the interdiction — writing in a northern hand with access to Ovid’s Metamorphoses (the epyllion of Acis and Galatea, XIII.848: pluma tegit volucres, ovibus sua lana decori est; the next line appears to gloss rather than to quote; modern editions contain vs. 849 “barba viros hirtaeque decent in corpore saetae;” our annotator writes “barba virilum:(?) sui:”). A later hand quotes (roughly) Horace on F5r: “Qúo ê imputa recens serva[bit/ testa diu” (Epistles I.2.69-70: quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem/ testa diu; the jar once soaked will long retain the scent). Below the colophon (M5v) is written in ink “cavenda conventus” (things of which the convent should be cautious), with one item listed: “Indusia,” women’s under-garments.
The use of the present volume is fairly clear from the XVIc onward. An obliterated inscription to the title-page (along the right-hand side; there is also a single line under the title) would doubtless have shed light on ownership; we can only assume that its original ownership was in a monastery or similar religious foundation. Indeed, the present volume is cited in The Book-Worm of 30 June 1867 (p. 91) under the title “forbidden fruit.” The author notes that “prohibited books were found in the rather large proportion in the libraries of the French convents when they were dispersed… during the great revolution. One of these books, which has found its way to England…” and then goes on to describe precisely the marginalia described above. On what authority he pronounces that the book made its way through France is unclear, but it is certainly in England by 1867 — perhaps a little before the book was washed and rebound.
Our volume next appears in 2004, in the rooms of Thomas Scheler in 2004 (lot 2; described as “bleu marine,” i.e., navy blue, and “à l’imitation de Bozerian;” sold for €115,000) — the first offering on the auction market since 1934 (Rare Book Hub). It was offered again in 2010 by Jeschke van Vliet in 2010 (lot 1; bought-in against an estimate of €90,000), and again in 2016 (and 2017, curiously) by Forum Auctions (2016: lot 214, £18,500; 2017: lot 167, £18,500). The volume was offered at the 2018 California book fair by Whitmore Rare Books, and finally purchased by us at Sotheby’s New York 16 December 2022, lot 116. It is a distinctive copy for its censorious censorship (and for the C4 hole), which has nevertheless intrigued a great many buyers over the last two decades — to say nothing of the bemused Victorian writing in The Book-Worm.
Sometime after, say, 1980, Livio Ambrogio (b. 1960) — his bookplate depicting the Tree of Life wound round with the serpent and the legend in Greek — acquired the book. Ambrogio is a scion of a northern Italian transport family, and an avid collector of Dante and other examples of early printing.
Adams A 291; Fairfax Murray, German 13; VD16 A435 (& B7056).
[1] Foll. a1, a6, c6, q6-r4, s2, s3, s5; A2, A4, A5, A6, A8, B6, B5, C1-C4, E2-E3 and M5.
[2] Foll. r5-s1, A1, B4, C5 and C6.
[3] The nominative version of Genesis 2.17:
ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ξύλου τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν οὐ φάγεσθε (from the tree of knowing good and ill do not eat).
Item #JLR0473
Price: $44,000