thumb|Title page of a 1549 edition of Ship of Fools.
thumb|Ship of Fools () was translated into Latin in 1497; some of the [[woodcuts illustrating the manuscript may have been created by Albrecht Dürer. The University of Edinburgh holds a copy of the Latin edition.]]
Ship of Fools (Modern German: ; ; original medieval German title: ) is a satirical allegory in German verse published in 1494 <!--this and following year links are to corresponding "[year] in poetry" pages--> in Basel, Switzerland, by the humanist and theologian Sebastian Brant. It is the most famous treatment of the ship of fools trope and circulated in numerous translations.
Overview
The Ship of Fools was published in 1494 in Basel, Switzerland, by Sebastian Brant. It was printed by Michael Furter for Johann Bergann von Olpe. The book consists of a prologue, 112 brief satires, and an epilogue, all illustrated with woodcuts. Brant takes up the ship of fools trope, popular at the time, lashing with unsparing vigor the weaknesses and vices of his time. He conceives Saint Grobian, whom he imagines to be the patron saint of vulgar and coarse people.
The concept of foolishness was a frequently used trope in the pre-Reformation period to legitimize criticism, as also used by Erasmus in his Praise of Folly and Martin Luther in his "" (Address to the Christian Nobility). Court fools were allowed to say much what they wanted; by writing his work in the voice of the fool, Brant could legitimize his criticism of the church. The abbot of Sponheim Johannes Trithemius lamented Brant's title choice and would have preferred the book to be called Divina Satyra. He compared the work to Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia for the use in both of their local languages.
The book was translated into Latin by in 1497,