Details
WALASSER, Adam. Kunst wol zusterben. Ein gar Nutzliches hochnothwendiges Büchlein aus heiliger Schrifft. Dillingen: Johann Mayer, 1588.
8° (157 x 100mm). Title and contents page in red and black, title with woodcut device, 22 full-page woodcut illustrations, probably after the monogrammist MZ, woodcut initials and tailpieces. (Some worming to lower blank margins of a few quires, e3 torn at outer margin slightly affecting text, slight marginal dampstaining and finger soiling.) Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, covers incorporating a broad roll tool border with two alternating portrait medallions, brass clasps and catches, spine in compartments with paper lettering-pieces (lightly rubbed). Provenance: Johannes ? (signature on front pastedown); Monastery at Aspern (inscription on title dated 1643); Julius Vetterl (inscription and illustration on final leaf).
Walasser's text is a vernacular amplification and reworking of the earlier text of the Ars Moriendi. It gives instructions on "good dying" and "an exhortation to the well man to keep death always before his eyes" (M. O'Connor, The Art of Dying Well: the development of the Ars Moriendi, New York, 1942, pp. 139-142). It was first printed in Dillingen in 1569: all 16th-century editions appear to be rare.
8° (157 x 100mm). Title and contents page in red and black, title with woodcut device, 22 full-page woodcut illustrations, probably after the monogrammist MZ, woodcut initials and tailpieces. (Some worming to lower blank margins of a few quires, e3 torn at outer margin slightly affecting text, slight marginal dampstaining and finger soiling.) Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, covers incorporating a broad roll tool border with two alternating portrait medallions, brass clasps and catches, spine in compartments with paper lettering-pieces (lightly rubbed). Provenance: Johannes ? (signature on front pastedown); Monastery at Aspern (inscription on title dated 1643); Julius Vetterl (inscription and illustration on final leaf).
Walasser's text is a vernacular amplification and reworking of the earlier text of the Ars Moriendi. It gives instructions on "good dying" and "an exhortation to the well man to keep death always before his eyes" (M. O'Connor, The Art of Dying Well: the development of the Ars Moriendi, New York, 1942, pp. 139-142). It was first printed in Dillingen in 1569: all 16th-century editions appear to be rare.