The Dance of Death

CONTENTS.


Page

CHAPTER I.

Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it
among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--
Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental
absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death
represented in early times by living persons in churches and
cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to
the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of
Macaber 1


CHAPTER II.

Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.--
Usually accompanied by verses describing the several
characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17


CHAPTER III.

Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--
Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological
errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois
mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at
Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as
well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real
Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At
Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle;
Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth;
Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois;
Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28


CHAPTER IV.

Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.--
Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in
Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51


CHAPTER V.

List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horae that
contain it.--Manuscript Horae.--Other Manuscripts in which it
occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single
prints, but connected with it 55


CHAPTER VI.

Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance
of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death,
1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the
edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.--
Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.--
Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78


CHAPTER VII.

Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans
Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons
engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him 94


CHAPTER VIII.

List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of
Death with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on
wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus
Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.--
Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations
of some of the subjects 103


CHAPTER IX.

Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.--
Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death
at Whitehall by him 138


CHAPTER X.

Other Dances of Death 146


CHAPTER XI.

Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects 160


CHAPTER XII.

Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced 168


CHAPTER XIII.

Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages
in some degree connected with the Dance of Death 179


CHAPTER XIV.

Single prints connected with the Dance of Death 188


CHAPTER XV.

Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death 213


CHAPTER XVI.

Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous 221


CHAPTER XVII.

Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux
Aveugles 228


CHAPTER XVIII.

Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of
the Dance of Death 233