1473 INCUNABULA leaf ZAINER BOCCACCIO Women WOODCUT 1st

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[Early Printing - Incunabula - Germany - Ulm] {Early Book Illustration - Woodcuts] [Biographical Literature - Middle Ages] [Mythology] A Single Leaf from Giovanni Boccaccio De claris mulieribus Folio xviii [1473] [Printed in Ulm (Germany) by Johann Zainer, 1473.] Text in Latin; with a superb large woodcut by the Boccaccio master. Editio Princeps. A single leaf (Folio xviii), from the FIRST EDITION of Boccaccio's celebrated work 'On the Famous Women".This extremely important incunabulum was ONE OF THE EARLIEST BOOKS PRINTED AT ULM, AND THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOK PRINTED T ! Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus was the first collection of biographies devoted exclusively to women. Boccaccio was inspired to write it as a companion to "Lives of Famous Men" by his elder contemporary and mentor, Petrarch. He includes women from mythology, legend and history, intentionally rescuing some nearly lost to obscurity, and choosing famous, not necessarily virtuous, women. He excuses his preference for pagan to religious women by noting that saints' lives are recorded elsew It was a popular work, known in over 100 manuscripts, was widely translated by the end of the 15th century, and was a source for Chaucer, Christine de Pisan, Edmund Spenser and others. Zainer's Boccaccio is an important witness to Renaissance humanism north of the Alps, and it is noteworthy that the first edition should appear in Germany. The German humanist physician Heinrich Steinh�wel was closely involved with Zainer's press and his translation into German of On Famous Women appeared soon afterwards. The woodcuts, by the eponymous Boccaccio Master, are the earliest series of Ulm woodcut illustrations, and appear in their fullest complement. They probably derive from Franco-Burgundian pictorial sources. The blocks were subsequently used for the German edition. In his "Introduction to the History of Woodcut" (vol. I, p.305) Arthur Hind describes the marvelous woodcut illustrations of the 1473 Zainer's Boccaccio as "oblongs about 3 x 4 1/4 inches in size, full of life and humour, but restrained. The figures are longer, smaller-headed and more graceful than those of most Augsburg blocks of the same period, and the compositions are more rhythmical in character." Native of Reutlingen, Johann Zainer, who introduced the art of printing to Ulm, was a major figure in the evolution of printing, "Johann Zainer, who, like his brother Gunther, had learned his craft at Strassburg, must have settled at Ulm about 1472, for his first book was dated 11th January 1473..." [Arthur Hind, An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, II, p.305]. Johann Zainer, who experimented with several different designs, incorporating a variety of curling leafy sprays, which more than four hundred years later inspired William Morris when he was designing the decorations for the Kelmscott Press books. William Morris, one of the leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement, highly esteemed Johann & Gunther Zainer's skill in typesetting and book design. The 'Troy' type used in many Kelmscott Press books was based on the kind of semi-blackletter rotunda used by the Zainer brothers. The content of the leaf: The leaf offered (Folio xviii) contains Chapter XV on the life of Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos, illustrated by a splendid large woodcut by the Boccaccio Master (cf. Weil p.24), on top of the recto of the leaf. At the bottom of the verso appears the title of (the next) Chapter xvi on Medea, queen of Colchis. In Greek mythology, Hypsipyle was the Queen of Lemnos. During her reign, Aphrodite cursed the women of the island for having neglected her shrines. All the women developed extreme body odor that made them repugnant to the men of the nation. The men took up with female slaves taken on raids on Thrace. The women of the island decided upon revenge and, in one night, killed all their male relatives. Hypsipyle alone spared a male. She hid her father, Thoas, from the venge... read more

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