The Dance of Death

it.-How connected with the Dance.-Trois mors et trois vifs.-Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.-Its connection with the tr

; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Am

th the Dance of Death, either with respect to the verses that have usually accompanied

title, from its ambiguity, is deserving of little consideration as a matter of authority; for if a comma be placed after the word Macabro, the title is equally applicable to the author of the verses and to the painter or inventor of the Dance. As the subject had been represented in several places in Germany, and of course accompanied with German descriptions, it is possible that Desrey might have translated and altered some or one of these, and, mistaking the real meani

a literary work, but as a painting; and he further remarks that although the verses are German in the Basil painti

which was most probably adopted in many places in England where the painting occurred, speaks of "the Frenche Machabrees daunce," and "the daunce of Machabree." At the end, "Machabree the Doctoure," is abruptly and unconnectedly introduced at the bottom

under the year 1424. It is also strangely called "Chorea Machab?orum," in 1453, as appears from the before cited document at St. John's church at Besan?on. Even th

ded to apply the word to the Dance itself,[45] but it is impossible that the intelligent librarian was not aware that personified sculpture, as well as the moral nature of the subject, cannot belong to the Mahometan religion. Another etymology extremely well calculated to disturb the gravity of the present subject, is that of M. Villaret, the French historian, when adverting to the spectacle of the Danse Macabre, supposed to have been given by the English in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. Relying on this circumstance, he unceremoniously decides that the name of the dance was likewise English; and that Macabrée is compou

the Danse Macabre, printed by Marchant, 1486, has stated that the verses have

on between the word Maca

by the like number of hideous spectres or images of Death, from whom they received a terrific lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A very early, and perhaps the earliest, allusion to this vision, seems to occur in a painting by Andrew Orgagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and although it varies a little from the description in the above-mentioned poems, the story is evidently the same. The painter has introduced three young men on horseback with coronets on their caps, and w

d as a civilian, and the third as a beautiful female decorated with gold and jewels. Whilst these persons are vainly boasting of their respective conditions, they are encountered by three horrible spectres in the shape of dead human bodies covered with worms, who very severely reprove them for their arrogance. This is evidently another version of the "Trois mors et

ous figure of Death mowing down with his scythe all ranks and conditions of men. Vasari adds that Orgagna had crowded his picture with a great many inscriptions, most of which were obliterated by time. From one of them which he has preserved in his work, as addressed to some aged cripples, it should appear that, as in the Macaber Dance, Death apostrophizes the several characte

ies of Hor? and other service books prefixed to the burial office. All the printed editions of the Macaber Dance contain it, but with some variation, the figure of Saint Macarius in his cell not being always introduced. It occurs in many of the printed service books, and in some of our o

nd that his name has undergone a slight and obvious corruption. The word Macabre is found only in French authorities, and the Saint's name, which, in the modern orthography of that language, is

the name of Macaber, as the author of the verses, leaving it only as applicable to the painting, and almost, if not altogether confirmatory of the preceding conjecture. The French version, from which Lydgate made his translation, nearly agrees with the Latin. Lydgate, however, in the above address, has thought fit to use the word translator instead of author, but this is of

phalia, with the date 1383, and mentioned by Fabricius in his Biblioth. med. et infim? ?tatis, tom. v. p. 2. It is to be wished

d, was that in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and

he manners and customs of the middle ages. The date ascribed to this painting is 1436. The above church was destroyed in the revolution, previously to which another Macaber Dance existed in the church of Notre Dame in the above city. This was not a painting on the walls, but a piece of white embr

as the causes of other Dances of Death; but there is no foundation whatever for such an opinion, as is demonstrable from what has been already stated; and it has been also successfully combated by M. Peignot, who is nevertheless a little at variance with himself, when he afterwards introduces a conjecture that the painter of the first Dance imitated the violent motions and contortions of those affected by the plague in the dancing attitudes of the figures of Death.[55] The name of the original painter of this Basle work is unknown, and will probably ever remain so, for no dependance can be had on some vague conjectures, that without the smallest appearance of accuracy have been hazarded concerning it. It is on record that the old painting having become greatly injured by the ravag

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rst published engravings in 1621, with all the inscriptions under the respective characters that were then remaining, but these could not possibly be the same in many respects that existed before the Reformation, and which are entirely lost. A proof of this may be gathered from the lines of the Pope's answer to Death, whom he is thus made to apostrophize: "Shall it be said that I, a God upon ear

se of the Emperor Sigismund and Duke Albert II. all of whom were present at the council; but admitting this to have bee

his execution was so miserable that they had much better have let it alone than to have had it so wretchedly bungled. He wholly rejects any retouching by Holbein. He particularizes two of the most remarkable subjects, namely, the fat jolly cook, whom Death seizes by the hand, carrying on his shoulder a spit with

combined with this painting, must be wholly laid aside, for there is no evidence that he was even employed to retouch it, as some have inadvertently stated; it was altogether a work unworthy of his talents, nor does it, even in its latest state, exhibit the smallest indication of his style of painting. This matter will be resumed hereafter, but in the mea

llor Vischer at his castle of Wildensheim, near Basle. This account of its destruction is recorded in Millin's Magazin Encyclopédique among the nouvelles littéraires for that year; but the Etrenne Helvétique for the above year has given a different account of the matter; it states that the painting having been once more renovated in the year 1703, fell afterwards into great decay, being entirely peeled from the wall-that this circumstance had, in some degree, arisen from

which contained the earliest engravings of the Basle painting, can on this occasion be noticed only from a modern reprint of it under the following title: "Der Todten-Tantz wie derselbe in der weitberuhmten Stadt Basel als ein Spiegel menslicher beschaffenheit gantz kuntlich mit lebendigen farben gemah

s of the figures in Merian's plates. The rest of the cuts, thirty-two in number, chiefly belong to the set usually called Holbein's. All the cuts in this miscellaneous volume have German verses at the top and bottom of each page with the subjects. If Jansen, who usually pillages some one else, can be trusted or understood, there was a prior edition of this book in 1606, with cuts having the last-mentioned mark, but which edition he calls the Dance of Death at Berne;[60] a title, considering the mixture of subjects, as faulty as that of the present b

these are in German, and the rest are accompanied with a French translation by P. Viene. They are all particularly described by Peignot.[62] Merian states in his preface that he had copied the paintings several years before, and given his plates to other persons to be published, adding that he had since redeemed and retouched them. He says this Dance was repaired in 1568 by Hans Hugo Klauber,

Au Locle, chez S. Girardet libraire." This is on an engraved frontispiece, copied from that in Merian. The letter-press is extracted from the French translation of Merian, and the plates, which are neatly etched, agree as to general design wi

de Necker, formschneider. 1572, 4to.[63] Whether this be a copy of the Basle or the Berne painting, must be decided on

Dance of Death painted on its walls, and said to have been much ruder in execution than that in the Dominican cemetery at Basle. On this painting there was the date 1312. In the year 1766 one Emanuel Ru

rthy of repetition.[65] That which requires most particular notice, and has been so frequently repeated, is the making Hans Holbein the painter of it, who was not born till

in all parts of Germany; that the figures were repaired at different times, as in 1588, 1642, and last of all in 1701. The verses that originally accompanied it were in low Dutch, but at the last repair it was thought proper to change them for German verses which were written

lscher, and published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separ

at Erfurth;[68] but Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that it was painted on the panels b

m and his company sat down on one side of the church and the bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon the wall. Thi

celebrated painter at Berne, in the beginning of the 16th century, has recorded a Dance of Death painted by him in oil, and regrets that a work materially contributing to

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as placed more spacious, entirely demolished. There were, however, two copies of it preserved at Berne, both in water colours, one by Albrech Kauw, the other a copy from t

uel had himself undergone some persecutions on the score of religion at the time of the Reformation, this is by no means improb

set of very beautiful drawings in colours, made by some artist at Berne, either after those by Stettler or Kauw, in the public library, are in

re or were thirty-six in number, and supposed to have been copied from the Basle dance. Lucerne has also another of the same kind in the burial ground of the parish church of Im-hof. One of the subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, the founder of a musical society, is Death playing on the violin, and summoning

, as he supposes, from the name of the author of the verses. He gives some lines that were on one of the walls, in which the Almighty commands Death to bring all mortals before h

several emblematical subjects of mortality. The place had more than once been destroyed.[73] On the pillars of the church at Fescamp, in Normandy,

ther for the purpose of obliteration or concealment. This painting seems to differ from the usual Macaber Dance, not always confined like that to two figures only, but having occasionally several grouped

urice at Vienne in Dauphiné, by one Marc Apvril, a citizen of that place. He adds, that he is well aware of the Dance of Macabre. Is it not, ther

Mary's church at Berlin, and obscurely refe

other religious buildings at Vienna, and among them the monastery of the Augustinians, where

re, 1. Death demolishing a student. 2. Death attacking a hunter who had just killed a stag. 3. Death in an apothecary's shop, breaking the phials and medicine boxes. 4. Death playing

constitutes the grand apartment of the country seat belonging to the Prince of Orange in the wood adjacent to the Hagu

r the Martyr, at Naples, in the following words. "At the entrance on the left is a marble with a representation of Death in a grotesque form. He has two crowns on his he

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been mentioned in p. 25, but no Spanish painting has been specified that can be called a regular Macaber Dance. There are grounds, however, for believing th