♦ ESOPE. Esopi appologi sive mythologicum... additionibus Sebastiani Brant. S.l.n.d. [at colophon] : Basel, Jacobus Wolff de Pforzheim, 1501. 2 parts in one folio volume, cold-stamped sow skin, boards framed with double fillets crossing at the corners, central panel drawn by a border with foliate motifs, the center rectangle decorated with a repeating decoration including a pinecone iron, chased brass clasps adorned with a monogram, three-ribbed spine bearing the title in ink at the top (Binding of the period). Magnificent and very rare illustrated edition of Aesop, the first published by Sebastian Brant (1458-1521), it contains an unpublished part containing fables written by the famous satirical poet. A native of Strasbourg, the author of the famous Nave of Fools was a member of the humanist circle in Basel, where he lived for twenty-five years. His edition of Aesop offers a revision of Heinrich Steinhöwel's Esopus, published by Johan Zainer in Ulm around 1476-1477, and is one of the most remarkable of the Renaissance. This version by Brant was translated into German and published in Strasbourg in 1508. Printed in Gothic type, the post-incunabula edition came from the presses of Jacob Wolff of Pforzheim (Jacob von Pfortzen), who was one of the great printers of Basel from the 1480s until his death around 1518-1519. It consists of two parts. The first part consists of 124 leaves, the last of which is blank. It opens with a title page, printed in three lines, with a superb full-page portrait of Aesop on the reverse. On the next page, on the front, there is the dedication of Sebastian Brant to Adalbert de Rapperg, dean of the church of Basel, dated Strasbourg, February 1501, and on the back, the preface of Lorenzo Valla, a Roman humanist to whom we owe the rediscovery of Aesop. Then comes the fabulous life of Aesop, translated from Greek by Rinuccio d'Arezzo and which occupies several pages. Finally, it contains the prologue and the book of Romulus, the fables attributed to Aesop, the Fabulae extravagantes (fables from unknown sources), the fables of Avianus (medieval fables imitated from Aesop) and the Fabulae collectae, which bring together pieces by Peter Alphonsus and facetiousnesses by Pogge. Brant added two pieces of the Anonymous of Nevelet, entitled De judeo et pincerna latrone and De cive et milite servientibus uni domino. The second part, in 80 leaves, is a personal addition by Sébastien Brant and constitutes one of the major interests of the edition. It gathers a series of 140 fables taken from various ancient authors such as Hesiod, Ovid, Juvenal, Virgil, Homer, etc., but it is not known exactly how much freedom Sebastien Brant reserved for himself in the adaptation or writing of these new fables. These fables are dedicated by the Alsatian humanist to his son Onophrius (or Onuphrius) for his instruction; a dedication to the latter, as well as a dissertation on the utility of fables, taken from Boccaccio and entitled Utilitas et commoditas fabularum poetarum, precede this literary corpus. In our edition, each fable is proposed according to an identical model, and this in both parts, in a versified form and in a prosaic form (the latter in the form of a more or less abundant moral commentary). The edition is remarkably illustrated with 335 woodcuts, of two very different styles. In the first part, the large full-length portrait of Aesop, which can be found in several incunabula editions of this author, is emblematic: the fabulist is depicted in his legendary deformed appearance, surrounded by several iconographic motifs referring to the universe of his fables. The Life of Aesop and the fables are illustrated with 193 figures, in an archaic style typical of the end of the 15th century, almost all taken from the Basel edition printed around 1490 and attributed to Michael Furter, Johann Amerbach or his associate Jacob Wolff of Pforzheim (the printer of our Aesop), the woodcuts being copies in reverse of those of Zainer's Ulm edition (the woodcuts of the latter edition are reproduced by Schramm, t. V, n°109-301) - the iconographic cycle of the edition of Ulm being, let us recall it, the first setting in images in a printed book of the Esophic corpus. These engravings, whose decoration is generally reduced to the essential, have an undeniable charm, some of them even having an enigmatic character. In the second part, the woodcut on the reverse of folio A1 is a portrait of Sebastian Brant kneeling and praying, accompanied by his coat of arms. Reproduced by Davies in the Fairfax Murray catalog, vol. I, p. 39, this woodcut first appeared in the 1498 Basel edition of Brant's Carmina. The fables are illustrated with 140 woodcuts executed by another artist in a very different style from the engravings in the first part. These illustrations appear more