BADIUS, Jodocus Ascensius

Navis stultifera Collectanea. Ab Jodoco Badio Ascensio vario carminu genere no fine eorudem familiari explanatione conflata.

      - Paris, Josse Badius pour lui et les frères Marnef, 1507. 4to. ff 107 [i].Verse text in Gothic letter, prose commentary in small Bâtard, title in red and black with De Marnef's pelican device (Renouard 713) and a woodcut ship of fools (labeled with a type insertion in red "Navis stultorum"), 114 woodcuts in the text (including four repetitions) two full page, title page fractionally dusty, cut a bit close at top margin just touching a few headlines. A fine copy, on thick paper with the woodcuts in mostly excellent, dark impression, in splendid French polished calf circa 1550, gilt medaillon portrait of Henry II at center of upper cover (worn), Diane de Poitier's double crescent moon cypher gilt at center of lower (cracked) with her 'omnium victorem vici' moto, both covers bordered with an interlaced strapword design gilt 'à la cire' in niger and white, inner panel with a delicate foliate scrollwork design with two small arabesques above and below central medallions, both of which are surounded with poitillé tooling and white and niger 'à la cire' filled rules, spine framed with double gilt rule filled in niger with elaborate central foliate design gilt, all edges heavily gilt, gauffered and painted in alternate red and blue stripes, joints a little rubbed, general slight wear but still very attractive. A wonderful copy of Badius's totally original reworking of Sebastian Brant's Ship of fools, first published in 1505, of which this edition is an exact copy, superbly bound for Diane de Poitiers. Badius' work is often taken for a new translation or a direct adaption of Brant's work, due to the ambiguous nature of its title. In reality the only thing it shares with Brant's ship of fools is the superb set of woodcuts which served as a theme for the 113 little Latin poems that make up this volume. The illustration's occur in more or less in the same order as in Brant's original and the chapter titles are almost identical but the development of the theme of each poem and moral conclusions reached are often substantially different. Renouard (Badius I p. 161-2) reprints the original alongside Badius's version to illustrate their differences. These poems are filled with reminiscences and verses taken from the classics, two borrowed in their entirety from Vergil, one from Robert Gaguin, and several others created from extracts from Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Perse and Baptiste de Mantoue. Badius acknowledges most of these borrowings in his commentary. His text merely employs the framework of the original to satirise the weaknesses, follies, and vices of his time, and as such is a rare example of a piece of literature inspired by its illustrations. Mortimer (referring to the 1505 edition) states that the woodcuts "are fairly close copies of the woodcuts designed for Johann Bergmann's Basel editions of Sebastian Brant's Das Narrenschiff. The majority of the Basel blocks were cut for the first edition of 1494. with eight substitutions and additions in the 1495 edition and in the first edition of Jakob Locher's Latin translation of 1497 .These Paris copies were made for the first edition of Pierre Riviere's French translation, 'La nef des folz du monde', printed for Jean Philippes Manstener and Geoffrey de Marnef in 1497. The lively Basel woodcuts, sometimes ascribed in part to Albrecht Durer, contributed substantially to the success of Brant's work. Probably the availability of the Paris set was a major factor in Badius' decision to work with the same subjects." (Mortimer 44). This copy was bound for Diane de Poitiers with Henry II gilt medallion portrait on the upper cover and her cipher and moto gilt on the lower. "much of the difficulty in identifying bindings made for Diane derives from the fact that Henry II's own bindings are typically so liberally scattered with her and their joint emblems" "their general appearance, the armorials aside, is pecisely that of the Henry II bindings 'de très grande luxe' whose standards they fully equal" N