Aulica Vita. Hoffleben. Vnd sunst der gantzen welt händel/ Wie jederman mit dem lincken schenckel schlecht.
Strassburg, J. Cammerlander 1539.
4to (200 x 134 mm.). [iii], [34], [2 blank], [1]p. Gothic type, shoulder notes, border strip tailpieces, TWENTY-FOUR TEXT WOODCUTS, Cammerlander’s woodcut device on the final verso, title in four architectural border strips.
Early 20th-century pastepaper over stiff boards (rubbed, spine chipped).
ILLUSTRATED VERNACULAR MIRROR OF PRINCES, SATIRIZING A HOST OF TRADES AND STATIONS IN SOCIETY — from cooks and cellar masters to chancellors. Rooted in the author’s five decades of service to the Prince Elector of Pfalz, this late medieval poem savages office sellers, gold diggers, scandal mongers, flatterers, bribers, religious hypocrites, money changers, etc. It recasts the fable of the wolf and the lamb to illustrate that the poor get no justice. It musters a wealth of traditional sayings to the cause and is an important source for Hans Sachs, Protestant interpretations of Reynard the Fox and the proverb collections of Franck, Lehmann, Schottel and Eyring. The woodcuts of courtiers and criminals, artisans and aristocrats suggest that the Mirror’s long popularity was, in part, as a children’s book.
THIS IS THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF SEVENTY-EIGHT LINES OF NEW TEXT BY AN UNKNOWN POET. They are not included in any other 16th-century printing, and the related insertions in the three 17th-century editions vary from the present version. The fresh verses concern crossbowmen and the cruelties of war. Only half of the eight printings to 1620 are held in U.S. libraries (1515 Harvard and Folger, 1516 Bancroft — I sold in 2014, 1534 E.D.White-Cornell, 1617 Princeton and NYPL — I sold in 1991). In good condition, seven lower margins partly or wholly untrimmed.
¶Morsheim, Spiegel des Regiments ed. Goedeke 32,A.b; Kessler, Johann von Morsheims Spiegel des Regiments 10-2,5; Benzing, Die Drucke Jakob Cammerlanders 72; Röttiger, “Die Holzschnitte des Druckerei des Jakob Cammerlander in Straßburg” in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1936 128; Ritter, Répertoire…des livres du XVIe siècle…à la Bibliothèque Nationale…de Strasbourg1595; Muller, Bibliographie Strasbourgeoise…XVIe siècle II: 354,83; VD 16 M 6392.
Price: $7,500.00