METHODIUS pseudo Revelationes divinae a sanctis angelis factae. Tractatus super Methodium.

Goff, M-524; GW, M-23059; CIBN, M-331; BMC, III, 785. See Fairfax Murray, German 289 (1504 edition).

First illustrated edition.

Fairfax states: ‘The first separate edition of this work in Latin was apparently that of Froschauer 1496, reprinted (?) by Kunne at Memmingen who also issued a German translation. None of these have cuts’.

This fine edition, edited by Sebastian Brant, is richly illustrated with 61 woodcuts in the text, including one of the earliest depictions of a Caesarean section (birth of the antichrist).

Although attributed to Saint Methodius (martyred in 312) and translated by Aytinger, a monk from Augsburg, it is now thought that the text was composed in Syriac in the 7th century but was only known in its Latin or Greek versions until the 20th century. The work recounts the effects of the Arab conquests of the Middle East on the Christian communities of the region, seeing them as God’s punishment for the downfall of the Christians, but prophesying the advent of a messiah in the form of a Roman emperor who would crush the Turks and Saracens.

This is one of the many apocalyptic texts circulating at the time, and probably the most widespread. This is the first illustrated edition of the text, which was a great success, as Furter regularly reprinted it using the same woodcuts. Some of the woodcuts can be found in other publications, such as the Nef des Fous also published by Sebastian Brant. There is also an early depiction of a caesarian (the birth of the Antichrist) and the prophetic conquest of Constantinople in 1509 by the last Roman emperor.

A fine, richly illustrated, incunable.

Some occasional thumbing in margins, printed marginalia of 6 leaves slightly shaved, quire ‘d’ misplaced after quire ‘b’.