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Petrarca, Francesco (1304-1374) Von der Artzney bayder Glück.
Augsburg: Steyner, 1532.
Folio in two parts, an incomplete copy lacking four leaves: title page (i); preliminary leaf (vi); and two text leaves in the first signature (A1 & A5); first German edition of Petrarch's De Remediis utriusque Fortunae, translated by Georg Spalatin and Peter Stahl, and one of the most beautiful woodcut books of the German Renaissance, illustrated with 261 woodcuts by the Petrarch Master, sometimes identified as Hans Weiditz the Younger (1495- circa 1537); bound in full late-16th century blind tooled alum-tawed pigskin over wooden boards, neatly rebacked and newly resewn; stains and paper repairs to contents, large tear with loss to B1 (repaired), 11 1/2 x 8 in.
"It is striking to observe how far removed the various discourses in which readers from the Early Modern Period interpreted Petrarch's works are from Petrarch's 'author's intention.' [...] A striking example of this process of interpretation is the German edition of Petrarch's De Remediis, illustrated by the famous 'Petrarch Master.' [...] The stunning images of the Petrarch Master transform the Stoic-Christian manual for meditation, for example, into the discourses of Lutheran polemics, of the satirical book of Folly, of a practical guidebook teaching how to act successfully in the material world, of fundamental Christian ethical criticism, or harsh social criticism against the German nobility." (Petrarch and His Readers in the Renaissance, ed. Jan Papy and Karl A. E. Enenkel, New York: Brill, 2006) (See also Karl A.E. Enenkel's "Pain as Persuasion: The Petrarch Master Interpreting Petrarch's De Remediis," in The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture, published in the journal Intersections, volume 12.)
"The Petrarch Master (c. 1500-1523), whose style was one of the most striking among Augsburg draughtsmen, was a talented artist, and probably a pupil of Hans Burgkmair. His real name is unknown, and he is commonly designated by reference to his main work, illustrations for the German translation of Petrarch's De Remediis." (Calosse, J.P. The Renaissance Engravers, United Kingdom: Parkstone International, 2019.)
