Das buch Granatapfel: im la=tin genannt Malogranatus...; mit sampt gaystlicher bedeütung des aussgangs der künder Jsrael von Egypto; Jtem ain merckliche vnder=richtung der gaistlichen spinnerin: Jtem etlich predige von dem hasen im pfeffer; Vnd von siben schwer=tern/ vnd schayden/ nach gaistlicher ausslegüg.

Strasbourg, Johann Knobloch, (14 March) 1511. With 6 excellent woodcuts by Hans Baldung Grien, few large historical and many initials throughout. 163 unum. leaves (2 blanks). Folio (310 x 215 mm). Contemp. blind-panelled calf over boards (front cover only), modern back cover, back label (clasps missing). 19th century ms. ownership entries and exlibris of Gilbert R. Redgrave, London (British bibliographer and art historian), and an unidentified exlibris. Strasbourg, Johann Knobloch, (14 March) 1511. First Strasbourg edition of a fine, tall and rare book illustrated with 6 woodcuts by Hans Baldung Grien (1480- d. 1545 Strasbourg), of which two of the woodcuts possibly were done by Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531), the foremost masters of the early 16th century. Baldung was considered the most gifted student of Albrecht Dürer. It contains six sermons in German by Johannes Geiler von Kaisersberg of Strasbourg (Schaffhausen 1445- Strasbourg 1510), renowned medieval preacher and a.o., Rector of Freiburg University, in which he treats religious and moral subjects in a popular manner. The pomegranate is of great symbolic value in biblical history, and is mentioned in several passages of the Old Testament. His "Granatapfel" is an important source for the customs and beliefs at the beginning of the 16th century.` This present Strasbourg edition follows the first edition published a year earlier in Augsburg also with woodcuts. The first picture shows Christ in the company of Lazarus, "the resuscitated sinner", and Mary and Magdalene, the represenatives of the active lives; the second illustrates very dramatically the submersion of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea; the third depicts St. Elizabeth as "the spiritual spinstress" (on leaf L1 sign. HB, by Hans Burgkmair); the fourth is a view of a kitchen in which a cook prepares a hare for a delicious meal of "Hasenpfeffer" (on leaf a1, sign. HBG, by Hans Baldung Grien), a scene which Geiler interprets in a moral allegory; the last two represent the seven Deadly Sins as swords in the paws of grotesque demons and the seven Cardinal Virtues as scabbards. - Light spotting to one of two text leaves, a few tears in margins of some leaves underlaid, on the whole a fine copy with wide margins. - VD 16 G 721; Kristeller *371; Proctor 10077; Adams G-310; STC, (German), 335; Dacheux, Les plus anciens écrit de Geiler, p. CVIII; Muther 1395; Muller p. 124 no. 100; not in Benzing. LITERATURE: GERMAN ; ILLUSTRATED BOOKS ; ALTE DRUCKE ;