We gain the best understanding of a cultural period when we focus on the events or people responsible for a paradigm shift. Hence, examining the late Middle Ages by way of investigating the contributions of the major poets and artists, for example, who lived at the very threshold of the early modern age, promises to be most illuminating. This is particularly true of the famous Strasbourg humanist Sebastian Brant, best known until today for his satirical
Narrenschiff[Ship of Fools] (1494), composed just two years after Columbus had found America and three years before Vasco da Gama discovered the way around Cape Horn, and thus the passage to India via the southern route. Brant was neither a discoverer nor a scientist, but gained his reputation through his humanist poems in Latin,…
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Citation: Classen, Albrecht. "Sebastian Brant". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11830, accessed 19 April 2024.]
