ADRIEN THE CHARTREUX. De remediis utriusque fortunæ. S.l.n.d. [Cologne, Ulrich Zell, ca. 1470]. In-4 of [160] ff, bradel stiff vellum, smooth spine decorated with a gilt iron and title, spotted edges (Douglas Cockerell & Son). First edition, printed by Ulrich Zell, the Cologne prototypographer. The work is an ethical treatise on good and bad fortune presented in the form of a dialogue between two allegorical characters (a cultor virtutis and a tyro vanitatis). Imitated from Petrarch's treatise of the same name, it was written at the beginning of the 15th century by a monk of the Carthusian monastery of Mont-Sainte-Gertrude, in North Brabant, and is therefore an interesting testimony to the reception of Italian humanism in the Netherlands. Ulrich Zell (†1507), from Hanau, was Cologne's first printer. He probably learned the art of typography in Mainz in the workshop of Fust and Schoeffer. He established himself in Cologne around 1463, but his first dated work is from 1466. He is credited with around 140 prints, but only 9 bear his name on the colophon. A precious and rare incunabulum, hand-lettered throughout and decorated at the incipit with a large initial painted in blue and red. A fresh and well-preserved copy bound for Paul Hirsch by Douglas Cockerell in 1937, with its label on the second flyleaf: Repaired for Paul Hirsch by Douglas Cockerell & Son, Letchworth, 1937. From the library of the Gymnasium, Cologne, with handwritten mark and stamp (cancelled for duplicate) in the margin of the first leaf. The copy subsequently passed through the collections of Paul Hirsch, Walter Hirst, with bookplate, George Abrams (1989, no. 2), with bookplate, and Ned J. Nakles (2000, no. 28). Some minor worm damage in the margins of the first few leaves. The signatures have been reinforced at the back of the volume; small marginal repair to one leaf. ISTC ia00054000 - Goff A-54 - H 93* - GW 227 - BMC, I, 188.