Antoine Vérard
Velins 579, Carthusian and sergeant
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Velins 579, Priest and peasant
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Guy Marchant's books about La Danse Macabre are famous, partly because of their big and handsome woodcuts.
But the woodcuts that were published in the same period by Antoine Vérard
are just as handsome, and this is not so strange.
Both series were produced by the same man, Pierre le Rouge,
and it is difficult to prefer either one to the other.
The pictures to the left and right show an exemplar, Velins 579 (see external link).
The last lines of the colophon have been erased
so all we can read is that it was printed in Paris:
»Cy finist la dance Macabre historiee et augmentee De plusieurs nouueaux personnages et beaux dits.
Et les trois mors & trois Vifs ensemble
nouuellement ainsi composee et imprimee a paris [… … …]«.
It was typical for Vérard to erase the colophon,
lest it should give credit for the work to the book printers.
The paradoxical result is that this book is attributed to Vérard,
precisely because of the absence of his name.
Concerning when it was printed,
Henri Monceaux (see external link) estimates the year to be 1485.
This guess is based on the fact that Vérard includes an extra verse towards the end, which
had been added in Marchant's 1485/86-edition
(the one that begins: »Bon y fait penser«),
but on the other hand he doesn't include any of those characters
that Marchant had added in this edition,
like for instance
the four musicians and
the legate and the duke.
Franciscan monk and child.
This copy was printed 26th June 1492.
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This argument is not impressive and Monceaux has failed to convince many people.
Most people assume Vérard's book to be newer than Marchant's, and The Bibliothèque Nationale de France used to simply write "around 1500".
After the book was re-scanned they instead write "1492".
The book to the left is very similar but not quite identical.
This one has a colophon, which states that the book was
printed by Gillet Coustiau and Jehan Menart
in 1492:
»Cy finist la dance macabre historiee
et augmentee de plusieurs nouueaux
personnages & beaux dits. Et
les trois mors et trois vifs ensemble
nouuellement ainsi composee et imprimee
a paris par Gillet coustiau et
Jehan menart. Lan de grace mil
quatre cens quatre vings & douze le
xxvi. iour de Juing«.
Even though the woodcuts were created by the same man who also created Marchant's woodcuts, and they
reproduce the same mural on the cemetery wall in St. Innocents, they are not identical.
This is particularly true for the structure of the images, where
Vérard's images feature a vertical column in the middle of each scene.
This column doesn't really separate the couples since the Death on the right side almost constantly
reaches out to the dancer on the left (image to the left).
l'Empire de la Mort
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The content is very much like that of Marchant's books (which was also stated in the colophon):
The 30 dancers from the cemetery wall in St. Innocents with an authority at the beginning and the end.
The final authority has an extra verse,
»Bon y fait penser soir et main«,
which does not appear in the old manuscripts,
and which Guy Marchant, as mentioned, didn't feature before the 1485/86-edition.
l'Empire de la Mort
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Then comes
the legend of the three living and three dead;
thereupon a ballad with
3 × 16 + 5 lines and the refrain: »Homme deffait et a perdicion«,
and finally a Latin poem of 5 lines, which is attributed to Jean de Rochechouart,
and which praises the art of printing
(this then must be the promised »beaux dits«).
Finally comes (the remains of) the colophon that we have already seen.
The publication to the left and right is different. It consists of a
The frontispiece
with the French armour and 5 pages. The pages are quite large, 56 × 39 cm, so the 5 pages are sufficient
for the authority, the thirty dancers, the dead king, the three living and the three dead.
However, the format has caused a shortage of space. The legend of the three living and three dead
is usually opened by a hermit, but this introduction consisting of 5 × 14 verses is missing.
The subsequent speeches of the dead and the living are without line breaks — obviously also to save space.
There is no colophon.
The frontispiece
once featured Vérard's printer's mark with two eagles holding a shield, but the shield has been painted over
with the strange effect that the eagles now strut their legs out into the empty air.
Lambeth Ms. 279
Notice how the characters throw a shadow on the "wall".
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The colouring is perfect and the dancers are presented on a background of blue sky and stars.
Compare with the picture to the right, Lambeth Ms. 279, where the characters throw a shadow on a wall.
Vérard's publications are (presumably) later than those of Marchant and in contrast to Marchant, Vérard has not created
anything new, like for instance extra verses or new participants.
nevertheless his influence has been widespread.
First of all, by direct copies like those made of
Matthias Huss,
and later by the copies of copies issued by
Jean Trepperel and Nicole de la Barre,
Jean Belot and Pierre de Saincte Lucie Dict le Prince and
Claude Nourry.
But his influence was broader — ranging from the greatest to the smallest.
A handwritten note in l'Empire de la Mort states that this work was the basis of a mural at the Château de Blois.
Another mural that still exists, the one in Meslay-le-Grenet, was also copied after one of Vérard's books.
At the opposite end of the scale are those marginals that were published by
Simon Vostre,
and which were copied by
Guillaume Godard.
This is also true for manuscripts like
Upenn 1945 65 13 14
and
Carlos V's book of hours.
Danse Macabre
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Danse Macabre
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Danse Macabre
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Danse Macabre
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Danse Macabre
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Frontispiece
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Links and Resources
- Danse macabre, ou l'Empire de la Mort.
A perfect scan of the coloured version from 1491/92.
- Antoine Vérard - the raw text from l'Empire de la Mort.
- La dance macabre, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Velins 579.
- Velins 579 has been transcribed by Project Gutenberg:
La danse macabre historiée et augmentée de plusieurs nouveaux personnages et beaux dits.
Unfortunately this exemplar has many alterations in brown ink, and the transcription was done using bad microfiches, where it was impossible to discern between the original print and the corrections.
- O creature rayso[n]able / Qui desires vie eternelle, Paris Musées, LDUT 301 - edition from 26th June 1492
- La Danse Macabre [Dance of Death] - the Lambeth Palace, Ms. 279. From 1492 ? The last words of the colophon (with the date) has been expurgated yet again.
- Les Le Rouge de Chablis
by Henri Monceaux, 1896. The link goes to page 176, where Bibliothèque Nationale's copy is described.
Further information
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Vérard
