Ulm · ca. 1476 · Johann Zainer

Vita et Fabulae (Ulm Aesop)

Aesopus

Vita et Fabulae (Ulm Aesop)
Fable of the eagle, tortoise and crow
An unframed outline woodcut of the eagle, tortoise and crow, set above the Latin moral and German retelling, with a decorated lombardic initial Q opening the Latin fable; leaf 00151.
Narrative fable woodcut with figures
A multi-figure narrative woodcut from the German fable cycle, characteristic of the firm decorative line that made the Ulm cuts a model for later Aesops; leaf 00561.
Death and burial of Aesop
The closing biographical scene, a crowd gathered around the laid-out body of Aesop, illustrating the Vita that precedes the fables; leaf 00577.
1 / 4

The Ulm Aesop, in Heinrich Steinhöwel's Latin-German bilingual edition. Nearly 200 unframed outline woodcuts give each fable a vivid plastic clarity, animals and faces drawn in firm decorative line that William Morris judged unmatched among fifteenth-century Aesops — a template copied across Germany and Flanders for decades.

Details

Title
Vita et Fabulae (Ulm Aesop)
Author
Aesopus
Printer
Johann Zainer
Place
Ulm
Year
ca. 1476
Format
f°
Language
Latin, German
Theme
illustration

Facsimiles

BSB ↗

Images

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Rar. 762 — Public Domain Mark 1.0

References

ISTC ia00116000