| Heading Title: | [Dance of Death], German |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ddnz with figures // clage and answer already // from all staten the werlt |
| publication: | [Heidelberg] |
| Publishing company: | [Knoblochtzer] |
| E-Year: | 1488 |
| Year: | [Ca. 1488] |
The Dance of Death or 'Le Danse Macabre' or 'Totentanz' or 'la Danza de la Muerte' was an artistic response across Europe to the devastation brought about by the plague or black death.
Although the origins are obscure, the idea of death visiting households without regard for social or economic status arose as a cultural phenomenon by way of dramatic plays. {Dante and Petrarch are mentioned as possible examples} The inevitablity of death was a reminder to be prepared by living a pious life: 'Memento Mori' -- 'Remember You Will Die'.
The earliest recorded artistic examples were frescoes in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris in 1424 (now gone). There are recordings of other church frescoes and paintings touching on the danse macabre theme in the the 15th century, most notably the paintings by Bernt Notke in St Mary's church in Lübeck, Germany in 1463. It is probably a little simplistic to think of the dance of death genre arising in isolation - pictures of death in cemeteries and churches had a long association with religious practises.
But it appears* that the incunabulum, 'Heidelberger Totentanz', was the first book in which the dance of death was portrayed. The author is unknown but it was printed by Heinrich Knoblochtzer in 1488 and contains a core series of 38 woodcuts in which the satricial emblem of death visits upon all manner of citizens. In most, the skeleton carries a musical instrument as a type of Pied Piper motif. The text, in a high German dialect, is addressed by death to its target.
[*There was an earlier work by Guyot Marchant in 1485 in which the paintings from the Church of the Holy Innocents were reproduced in 17 woodcuts (this is how we know about the original frescoes) and accompanied by text. So it's probably fairer to regard 'Heidelberger Totentanz' as containing the first dance of death illustrations produced solely for a book.
There is also some mention of 'Heidelberger Totentanz' having appeared in a different form in the 1460s but nothing I saw suggested I was reading an 'authority' - it's quite possible the woodblocks had been carved prior to 1488 however.]
