Louis-Catherine Silvestre, 1858
The front page
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Silvestre writes that
"the costume and pose of each character have been meticulously reproduced; the artist has sometimes varied the pose of Death".
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The first modern version af La danse macabre seems to have been the one
produced in 1858 by publisher and bookseller Louis-Catherine Silvestre (1792-1867).
This book is not only the first, but as we shall see on this and other pages, it has had a great influence
on later publications
for which it has never received recognition.
The book reproduces all 40 men from Guyot Marchant's 1486-version
and the 36 women from the 1491-version.
In the original woodcuts there were two dancing couples per page surrounded by pillars and arcades
but owing to the small format of this book, each page features only one couple, who are placed out in the open
(picture to the right).
Particularly when it comes to the women's dance, the style is free and animated,
so I have included all 36 images (see below).
Just like the original books, this one is a kind of anthology. First comes the dance of the men,
which is introduced by an authority and four musicians
and rounded off by a dead king and authority.
Then comes the dance of the women,
likewise introduced by an authority and four musicians
and rounded off by a dead queen and authority (as always, the same woodcut is used for the dead king as well as for
the dead queen).
After the dances come
the legend of the three dead and three living,
"the discussion between the body and the soul", "the lament of the damned soul"
and "instruction to live well and die well".
These chapters aren't allocated many woodcuts, but then again they are not the ones being
advertised on the front page.
The text is a chapter on its own.
The publisher explains:
The monk
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Notre texte est celui de l'édition de 1486, augmenté, pour
les femmes, des textes de la bigote et de la sotte, tirés de
l'édition de 1491. L'édition attribuée à Vérard, ainsi que
l'édition incomplète (Y, 6416) de la Bibliothèque impériale
(que nous pensons être celle de Guy Marchant, 1490) et
celle de Geneva, 1503, nous ont fourni de bonnes variantes,
surtout la première de ces trois éditions.
The text then, is from the 1486-version except for
the bigot woman and the fool, who didn't appear here and instead are taken
from the 1491-version.
The publishers have then "augmented" the text by taking "the best variants" from a version by Vérard,
another incomplete version, which they believe is by Guy Marchant,
and a version from Geneva, 1503.
The publisher claims they had in particular used the first of these three versions
(i.e. the one by Vérard), but they have certainly used the Geneva-version as well.
The clearest example is seen in the exchange between Death and the monk (picture to the right):
| Marchant 1486 | Silvestre | Geneva, 1503 |
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Ha maistre: par la passeres
Naiez ia soing de vous deffendre
Plus hommes nespouenteres.
Apres moinne sans plus actendre |
Ha maistre par la passeres
Naiez ia soing de vous deffendre
Ne iamais abbe ne seres.
Mourir vous fault sans plus actendre |
Ha maistre par la passeres
Nayes ia soing de vous deffendre.
Ne iamais abbe seres.
Mourir vous fault sans plus atendre |
In both the 1485- and 1486-edition,
as well as in all of the old manuscripts,
Death begins his speech by finishing the dialogue with the previous dancer,
the sergeant, who is evidently called »maistre«.
Now that the sergeant is about to die, he shall not scare any more people:
»Plus hommes nespoventeres«.
It's only in the fourth line that
Death turns to the monk, »Apres moinne«.
The type-setter has indented this line slightly to separate the rest of the stanza from the first three lines.
In Silvestre's version
the entire verse addresses the monk. This means that in this case it's the monk who is »maistre«.
He is told that he will never become an abbot because he is going to die.
As the table shows, the text was the same in
those books that were published in Geneva,
1503.(1)
This and other changes, that in particular originate from the books of Geneva,
will be studied more closely on two other pages.
It is rather revealing when Silvestre's text is
used in the more famous editions by
Tisserand, Theodor Hoffbauer,
Valentin Dufour, Edward Chaney and Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, without paying Silvestre the credit
he is due.
Silvestre
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Resources and links
Further Information
Footnotes:
(1)
There is the same variant in the publications from
Jean Belot,
Nicole de Barre and
Jean Trepperel
(Geneva, 1503, was probably published by Jean Belot).
This shows that these three publishers not only used almost identical woodcuts, but also a very similar text.
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Silvestre
