“There is no End to the Multiplication of Books”

One may wonder how contemporaries viewed the plethora of books that were so much easier to acquire, some of which were very cheap. In the centers of printing and education, the book was becoming a much more common, frequently seen object in everyday life. One possible answer to this question is printed in Sebastian Brant's satirical allegory Das Narrenschiff (Eng.: The Ship of Fools). The work was first published in 1494. Three years later, in 1497, it was translated into Latin under the title Stultifera navis. 

One of the chapters of this book is entitled “On the Uselessness of Books”. In it a fool complains that he has a lot of books that he rarely reads, and even when he does, he doesn't understand much, but he keeps them, he treasures them, he dusts them off ... A phrase from the Latin text of the book gave the title to this exhibition – “Faciendi libros plures non est finis”. As the fool says, it is difficult to read all the existing books written by various writers, difficult to find the truth in all this multitude, because one is distracted by the sheer number of books and by their never-ending multiplication.

Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg, Ink. E 4679
ISTC ib01081000, GW 05048  

Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, 8° Ink 74 
ISTC ib01081400, GW 05045 

Universitätsbibliothek Basel, UBH Inc 761
ISTC ib01087000, GW 05055 

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 4 Inc.c.a. 1482 a 
ISTC ib01093000, GW 05063