After the Fall Pope

 
All men's bones  
 

All men's bones

Basel's dance of death, Ossuary
Basel's dance of death, The ossuary.
Holbein's dance of death alphabet, Initial A
Holbein's dance of death alphabet.

N ow the dance of death starts — and is introduced by drums and trumpet. It's not hard to see where Holbein has found the inspiration: His hometown Basel had two famous dances of death and both of them starts in the same way. The picture to the left is from the beginning of the so-called Groß-Basel dance of death.

In Holbein's picture, as well as in Basel's dances of death, one Death beats the drum and plays the fife, while the other blows a horn. In the background an untold number of skulls are piled up.

This makes it possible to prove that Holbein's dance of death alphabet is older than his great dance of death: The alphabet follows the model (Basel's dance of death) much more closely than the great dance of death does (see picture to the right).

Dance of death in Wasserburg's ossuary, 1837
The dance of death in Wasserburg
Dance of death in Lucerne
Jakob von Wil's dance of death in Lucerne

Holbein's dance of death has also inspired the dance of death in Lucerne from ca. 1610 and the dance of death from the former ossuary in Wasserburg from 1837.

A marine trumpet sticks up Variations: The various artists follow Holbein's original rather closely. A small variant is that Birckmann adds what looks like a "marine trumpet" (see the page about the peddler for details). The interesting part is that Valvasor copies the marine trumpet on his picture.

Holbein's Imagines Mortis: All men's bones
Les Simulachres (1538)
Vogtherr 1544: All men's bones
Vogtherr (1544)
Birckmann 1555: All men's bones
Birckmann (1555)
Eberhard Kieser imaginibus: All men's bones
Eberhard Kieser (1617)
Theatrum mortis humanae tripartitum: All men's bones
Valvasor (1682)
Schlotthauer 1832: All men's bones
Schlotthauer (1832)

After the Fall Pope Up to Holbein's great dance of death