Marginal thinking: Jacobinus Suigus
The dance of death starts on the same page as the mass for the dead.
|
Jacobinus Suigus and Nicolaus de Benedictis
operated in Lyon, but they have been quick to imitate their Parisian colleagues.
Their book of hours from 1499 contains not just the dance of death, but countless other
copies of saints from the Parisian books.
Francis Douce writes about this publication:
No. XVIII. "Officium beatæ Mariæ Virginis ad usum Romane ecclesie.
Impressum Lugduni expensis Bonini de Boninis Dalmatini,"
die xx martij, 1499, 12mo. On vellum.
Here the designs are very different, and three of the subjects are placed at the bottom of the page.
They consist of the following personages, there being no females among them. It was reprinted by the same printer in 1521.
| Papa | | Astrologus |
| Imperator | | Cives |
| Cardinales. | | Canonicus. |
| |
| Archiepiscopus | | Scutifer |
| Eques | | Abbas |
| Episcopus. | | Pretor. |
| |
| Rex | | Monachus |
| Patriarche | | Usurarius |
| Capitanus. | | Medicus. |
| |
| Plebanus | | Mercator |
| Laborator | | Certosinus |
| Frater Minor. | | Nuncius. |
| |
| Amans | | Puer |
| Advocatus | | Sacristanus |
| Joculator. | | Heremita. |
(Francis Douce, The dance of death exhibited in elegant engravings on wood, 1833, page 71)
As Douce writes, the dance is placed at the bottom of each page,
and even though Douce doesn't say it in so many words,
these 30 figures are the same as those we know from
Simon Vostre
and from the Parisian Danse Macabre.
There is also the oddity that the woodcuts are in reverse order.
The first woodcut starts with the hermit,
who normally finishes this dance: hermit, clerk and child,
while the tenth woodcut ends with the pope, who usually starts the dance:
cardinal, emperor and pope.
In the 1500-edition, the dance begins with cardinal, emperor and pope, but all in all the sequence seems to be rather random.
The dance is repeated 6-7 times, but one can't help wishing that the printer had made just one good print.
Originally I used to gripe over the quality of the scans, but
the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek must have heard my laments, for they have re-scanned the book in a high resolution.
In the mean time several other online editions have become available as well. See the external links.
Now follows Marcus Reinhart.
The next chapter is about Marcus Reinhart, who may have been the first person to put a dance of death in the margins of a printed book.
The previous subject was Thielman Kerver in French.
Jacobinus Suigus' 30 dancers
The 10 blocks are ordered in the "inverted" sequence,
starting with the hermit. After that come all 30 dancers in the normal sequence:
Mass for the dead
|
External links
The dance of death
Marginals
Jacobinus Suigus
