Der Edelstein (1461) — Gallery of Early Printed Books

Opening leaf with the ape-and-nut fable — The opening leaf: a hand-colored woodcut of the ape who cracks the bitter nutshell, set above the rubricated initial "E" beginning the prologue verse "Eins mals ein affe kam gerat" — the half-width author frame at left is a recurring device throughout the book (f. 1r, leaf 00001).

The hunter and the stag — A huntsman struggling with a great antlered stag, one of the boldly colored outline cuts; below it the rubricated initial opens a fable on backbiting ("Heimlich der stral die zungen wunt kan") (leaf 00002).

The dog and its reflection — The Aesopic fable of the dog crossing water with stolen meat in its jaws, losing its prize for the reflected illusion — a warning against greed ("Durch geitheit das war ym zorn") (leaf 00008).

The wolf and the crane — The fable of the wolf and the long-billed crane (here a stork) that draws the bone from the wolf's throat and is denied its promised reward — the ingratitude tale "Der storch sprach wolf thu auff dein munt" (leaf 00016).

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The first dated illustrated printed book: Boner's collection of German verse fables, issued by Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg on 14 February 1461, sets letterpress against a sequence of about a hundred woodcuts — the earliest marriage of movable type and printed image. The cuts are plain hand-colored outlines, closer to a blockbook than to the refined Nuremberg woodcut to come, but they establish the illustrated book as a form. The dated 1461 edition survives in a single copy, at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel.

Der Edelstein

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