La danse Macabre, Paris, 1485
The emperor
|
The end
|
The first person to print and illustrate the dance of death from
the cemetery in St. Innocents, Paris, was Guyot Marchant.
The book contained those 67 verses that we know from the old manuscripts
like for instance Lille MS. 139.
The large, masterly woodcuts were created by Pierre le Rouge.
Only one copy of this book has survived and this copy is unfortunately lacking the title page and most of the first leaf,
but there's sufficient enough remaining to see that one side has depicted the authority
(without Latin texts over the woodcut) and that the other side has featured the pope and emperor.
This first edition only contains the author/authority in the introduction,
the 30 men, and the dead king and the authority at the end (picture to the right).
It wasn't before the next year that Guyot Marchant added
the four musicians, 10 men more, a series of women
and Latin quotes over each woodcut.
The picture to the right shows the end with
the dead king and the authority, and as one can see there are only three verses (followed by the colophon).
The next year Guyot Marchant added another verse beginning:
»Bon y fait penser soir et main«.
The book ends by telling that it was printed by Guyot Marchant the 28th September 1485:
»Cy finit la danse macabre imprimee
par ung nomme guy marchant demorant
au grant hostel du college de
nauarre en champ gaillart a paris
Le vinthuitiesme iour de septembre
Mil quatre cent quatre vingz et cinq«.
The following woodcuts are from a later edition. Some of them were created for the 1486-edition.
Further information
External links
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Paris, 1485
