Of Ships and Fools: Death and Mirrors in La Lozana andaluza

Abstract

This paper is a comparative analysis of the visual images in two early print versions of Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools and Francisco Delicado's Retrato de la Lozana andaluza. I begin with a visual comparison of the title pages of the Ship of Fools and Retrato de la Lozana andaluza. Through this comparison, I highlight the importance of mirrors and reflected images in each text. In particular, I argue how the imperfection of mirrors inverts and distorts images, and how these reflections and distortions are used as a literary device by the authors of both works. This leads to a final analysis of death imagery as a reference to the fate of the immortal soul, focusing on the reflected image of a memento mori on the title page of Retrato de la Lozana andaluza. Delicado borrows the mechanism of inversion from the Ship of Fools in order to create a variegated text that defies a single interpretation by engaging with and parodying the didactic literature of the time.