_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._
The next subject for investigation is the origin of the name of Macaber,
as connected with the Dance of Death, either with respect to the verses
that have usually accompanied it, or to the paintings or representations
of the Dance itself; and first of the verses.
It may, without much hazard, be maintained that, notwithstanding these
have been ascribed to a German poet called Macaber, there never was a
German, or any poet whatever bearing such a name. The first mention of him
appears to have been in a French edition of the Danse Macabre, with the
following title, "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemannicis edito, et
a Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro
Godefrido de Marnef. 1490, folio." This title, from its ambiguity, is
deserving of little consideration as a matter of authority; for if a
comma be placed after the word Macabro, the title is equally applicable to
the author of the verses and to the painter or inventor of the Dance. As
the subject had been represented in several places in Germany, and of
course accompanied with German descriptions, it is possible that Desrey
might have translated and altered some or one of these, and, mistaking the
real meaning of the word, have converted it into the name of an author. It
may be asked in what German biography is such a person to be found? how it
has happened that this _famous_ Macaber is so little known, or whether the
name really has a Teutonic aspect? It was the above title in Desrey's work
that misled the truly learned Fabricius inadvertently to introduce into
his valuable work the article for Macaber as a German poet, and in a work
to which it could not properly belong.[39]
M. Peignot has very justly observed that the Danse Macabre had been very
long known in France and elsewhere, not as a literary work, but as a
painting; and he further remarks that although the verses are German in
the Basil painting, executed about 1440, similar verses in French were
placed under the dance at the Innocents at Paris in 1424.[40]
At the beginning of the text in the early French edition of the Danse
Macabre, we have only the words "la danse Macabre sappelle," but no
specific mention is made of the author of the verses. John Lydgate, in his
translation of them from the French, and which was most probably adopted
in many places in England where the painting occurred, speaks of "the
Frenche Machabrees daunce," and "the daunce of Machabree." At the end,
"Machabree the Doctoure," is abruptly and unconnectedly introduced at the
bottom of the page. It is not in the French printed copy, from the text
of which Lydgate certainly varies in several respects. It remains,
therefore, to ascertain whether these words belong to Lydgate, or to whom
else; not that it is a matter of much importance.
The earliest authority that has been traced for the name of "Danse
Macabre," belongs to the painting at the Innocents, and occurs in the MS.
diary of Charles VII. under the year 1424. It is also strangely called
"Chorea Machabaeorum," in 1453, as appears from the before cited document
at St. John's church at Besancon. Even the name of one _Maccabrees_, a
Provencal poet of the 14th century, has been injudiciously connected with
the subject, though his works are of a very different nature.
Previously to attempting to account for the origin of the obscure and much
controverted word Macaber, as applicable to the dance itself, it may be
necessary to advert to the opinions on that subject that have already
appeared. It has been disguised under the several names of Macabre,[41]
Maccabees,[42] Maratre,[43] and even Macrobius.[44] Sometimes it has been
regarded as an epithet. The learned and excellent M. Van Praet, the
guardian of the royal library at Paris, has conjectured that _Macabre_ is
derived from the Arabic _Magbarah_, magbourah, or magabir, all signifying
a church-yard. M. Peignot seems to think that M. Van Praet intended to
apply the word to the Dance itself,[45] but it is impossible that the
intelligent librarian was not aware that personified sculpture, as well as
the moral nature of the subject, cannot belong to the Mahometan religion.
Another etymology extremely well calculated to disturb the gravity of the
present subject, is that of M. Villaret, the French historian, when
adverting to the spectacle of the Danse Macabre, supposed to have been
given by the English in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. Relying
on this circumstance, he unceremoniously decides that the name of the
dance was likewise English; and that _Macabree_ is compounded of the
words, to _make_ and to _break_. The same silly etymology is referred to
as in some historical dictionary concerning the city of Paris by Mons.
Compan in his Dictionaire de Danse, article _Macaber_; and another which
is equally improbable has been hazarded by the accomplished Marquis de
Paulmy, who, noticing some editions of the Danse Macabre in his fine
library, now in the arsenal at Paris, very seriously states that Macaber
is derived from two Greek words, which denote its meaning to be an
_infernal dance_;[46] but if the Greek language were to be consulted on
the occasion, the signification would turn out to be very different.
It must not be left unnoticed that M. De Bure, in his account of the
edition of the Danse Macabre, printed by Marchant, 1486, has stated that
the verses have been attributed to Michel Marot; but the book is dated
before Marot was born.[47]
Again,--As to the connexion between the word Macaber with the Dance
itself.
In the course of the thirteenth century there appeared a French metrical
work under the name of "Li trois Mors et li trois Vis," _i. e._ Les trois
Morts et les trois Vifs. In the noble library of the Duke de la Valliere,
there were three apparently coeval manuscripts of it, differing, however,
from each other, but furnishing the names of two authors, Baudouin de
Conde and Nicolas de Marginal.[48] These poems relate that three noble
youths when hunting in a forest were intercepted by the like number of
hideous spectres or images of Death, from whom they received a terrific
lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A very early, and perhaps the
earliest, allusion to this vision, seems to occur in a painting by Andrew
Orgagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and although it varies a little from
the description in the above-mentioned poems, the story is evidently the
same. The painter has introduced three young men on horseback with
coronets on their caps, and who are attended by several domestics whilst
pursuing the amusement of hawking. They arrive at the cell of Saint
Macarius an Egyptian Anachorite, who with one hand presents to them a
label with this inscription, as well as it can be made out, "Se nostra
mente fia ben morta tenendo risa qui la vista affitta la vana gloria ci
sara sconfitta la superbia e sara da morte;" and with the other points to
three open coffins, in which are a skeleton and two dead bodies, one of
them a king.
A similar vision, but not immediately connected with the present subject,
and hitherto unnoticed, occurs at the end of the Latin verses ascribed to
Macaber, in Goldasti's edition of the Speculum omnium statuum a Roderico
Zamorensi. Three persons appear to a hermit, whose name is not mentioned,
in his sleep. The first is described as a man in a regal habit; the second
as a civilian, and the third as a beautiful female decorated with gold and
jewels. Whilst these persons are vainly boasting of their respective
conditions, they are encountered by three horrible spectres in the shape
of dead human bodies covered with worms, who very severely reprove them
for their arrogance. This is evidently another version of the "Trois mors
et trois vifs" in the text, but whether it be older or otherwise cannot
easily be ascertained. It is composed in alternate rhymes, in the manner,
and probably by the author of Philibert or Fulbert's vision of the dispute
between the soul and the body, a work ascribed to S. Bernard, and
sometimes to Walter de Mapes. There are translations of it both in French
and English.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
For the mention of S. Macarius as the hermit in this painting by Orgagna,
we are indebted to Vasari in his life of that artist; and he had, no
doubt, possessed himself of some traditionary information on the subject
of it. He further informs us, that the person on horseback who is stopping
his nostrils, is intended for Andrea Uguzzione della fagivola. Above is a
black and hideous figure of Death mowing down with his scythe all ranks
and conditions of men. Vasari adds that Orgagna had crowded his picture
with a great many inscriptions, most of which were obliterated by time.
From one of them which he has preserved in his work, as addressed to some
aged cripples, it should appear that, as in the Macaber Dance, Death
apostrophizes the several characters.[49] Baldinucci, in his account of
Orgagna, mentions this painting and the story of the Three Kings and Saint
Macarius.[50] Morona, likewise, in his Pisa illustrata, adopts the name of
Macarius when describing the same subject. The figures in the picture are
all portraits, and their names may be seen, but with some variation as to
description, both in Vasari and Morona.[51]
Now the story of _Les trois mors et les trois vifs_, was prefixed to the
painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at
Paris, and had also been sculptured over the portal of the church, by
order of the Duke de Berry in 1408.[52] It is found in numerous manuscript
copies of Horae and other service books prefixed to the burial office. All
the printed editions of the Macaber Dance contain it, but with some
variation, the figure of Saint Macarius in his cell not being always
introduced. It occurs in many of the printed service books, and in some of
our own for the use of Salisbury. The earliest wood engraving of it is in
the black book of the "15 signa Judicii," where two of the young men are
running away to avoid the three deaths, or skeletons, one of whom is
rising from a grave. It is copied in Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p.
xxx.
From the preceding statement then there is every reason to infer that the
name of Macaber, so frequently, and without authority, applied to an
unknown German poet, really belongs to the Saint, and that his name has
undergone a slight and obvious corruption. The word _Macabre_ is found
only in French authorities, and the Saint's name, which, in the modern
orthography of that language, is _Macaire_, would, in many ancient
manuscripts, be written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_, the letter _b_
being substituted for that of _u_ from the caprice, ignorance, or
carelessness of the transcribers.
As no German copy of the verses describing the painting can, with any
degree of certainty, be regarded as the original, we must substitute the
Latin text, which may, perhaps, have an equal claim to originality. The
author, at the beginning, has an address to the spectators, in which he
tells them that the painting is called the Dance of Macaber. There is an
end, therefore, of the name of Macaber, as the author of the verses,
leaving it only as applicable to the painting, and almost, if not
altogether confirmatory of the preceding conjecture. The French version,
from which Lydgate made his translation, nearly agrees with the Latin.
Lydgate, however, in the above address, has thought fit to use the word
_translator_ instead of _author_, but this is of no moment, any more than
the words _Machabree the Doctour_, which, not being in the French text,
are most likely an interpolation. He likewise calls the work _the
daunce_; and it may, once for all, be remarked, that scarcely any two
versions of it will be found to correspond in all respects, every new
editor assuming fresh liberties, according to the usual practice in former
times.
The ancient paintings of the Macaber Dance next demand our attention. Of
these, the oldest on record was that of Minden in Westphalia, with the
date 1383, and mentioned by Fabricius in his Biblioth. med. et infimae
aetatis, tom. v. p. 2. It is to be wished that this statement had been
accompanied with some authority; but the whole of the article is extremely
careless and inaccurate.
The earliest, of which the date has been satisfactorily defined, was that
in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and which has been already
mentioned as having been painted in 1434.
In the cloister of the church of the Sainte Chapelle at Dijon the Macaber
Dance was painted by an artist whose name was Masoncelle. It had
disappeared and was forgotten a long time ago, but its existence was
discovered in the archives of the department by Mons. Boudot, an ardent
investigator of the manners and customs of the middle ages. The date
ascribed to this painting is 1436. The above church was destroyed in the
revolution, previously to which another Macaber Dance existed in the
church of Notre Dame in the above city. This was not a painting on the
walls, but a piece of white embroidery on a black piece of stuff about two
feet in height and very long. It was placed over the stalls in the choir
on grand funeral ceremonies, and was also carried off with the other
church moveables, in the abovementioned revolution.[53] Similar
exhibitions, no doubt, prevailed in other places.
The next Macaber Dance, in point of date, was the celebrated one at
Basle, which has employed the pens and multiplied the errors of many
writers and travellers. It was placed under cover in a sort of shed in the
church-yard of the Dominican convent. It has been remarked by one very
competent to know the fact, that nearly all the convents of the Dominicans
had a Dance of Death.[54] As these friars were preachers by profession,
the subject must have been exceedingly useful in supplying texts and
matter for their sermons. The present Dance is said to have been painted
at the instance of the prelates who assisted at the Grand Council of
Basle, that lasted from 1431 to 1443; and in allusion, as supposed, to a
plague that happened during its continuance. Plagues have also been
assigned as the causes of other Dances of Death; but there is no
foundation whatever for such an opinion, as is demonstrable from what has
been already stated; and it has been also successfully combated by M.
Peignot, who is nevertheless a little at variance with himself, when he
afterwards introduces a conjecture that the painter of the first Dance
imitated the violent motions and contortions of those affected by the
plague in the dancing attitudes of the figures of Death.[55] The name of
the original painter of this Basle work is unknown, and will probably ever
remain so, for no dependance can be had on some vague conjectures, that
without the smallest appearance of accuracy have been hazarded concerning
it. It is on record that the old painting having become greatly injured by
the ravages of time, John Hugh Klauber, an eminent painter at Basle, was
employed to repair it in the year 1568, as appears from a Latin
inscription placed on it at the time. This painter is said to have covered
the decayed fresco with oil, and to have succeeded so well that no
difference between his work and the original could be perceived. He was
instructed to add the portrait of the celebrated Oecolampadius in the act
of preaching, in commemoration of his interference in the Reformation,
that had not very long before taken place. He likewise introduced at the
end of the painting, portraits of himself, his wife Barbara Hallerin, and
their little son Hans Birich Klauber. The following inscription, placed on
the painting on this occasion, is preserved in Hentzner's Itinerary, and
elsewhere.
A. O. C.
Sebastiano Doppenstenio, Casparo Clugio Coss.
Bonaventura a Bruno, Jacobo Rudio Tribb. Pl.
Hunc mortales chorum fabulae, temporis injuria vitiatum
Lucas Gebhart, Iodoc. Pfister. Georgius Sporlinus
Hujus loci AEdiles.
Integritati suae restituendum curavere
Ut qui vocalis picturae divina monita securius audiunt
Mutae saltem poeseos miserab. spectaculo
Ad seriam philosophiam excitentur.
[Greek: ORATELOS MAKROU BIOU
ARCHEN ORAMAKARIOU]
CI=C= I=C= LXIIX.
In the year 1616 a further reparation took place, and some alterations in
the design are said to have been then made. The above inscription, with an
addition only of the names of the then existing magistrates of the city,
was continued. A short time before, Mathew Merian the elder, a celebrated
topographical draftsman, had fortunately copied the older painting, of
which he is supposed to have first published engravings in 1621, with all
the inscriptions under the respective characters that were then remaining,
but these could not possibly be the same in many respects that existed
before the Reformation, and which are entirely lost. A proof of this may
be gathered from the lines of the Pope's answer to Death, whom he is thus
made to apostrophize: "Shall it be said that I, a God upon earth, a
successor of St. Peter, a powerful prince, and a learned doctor, shall
endure thy insolent summons, or that, in obedience to thy decree, I should
be compelled to ascertain whether the keys which I now possess will open
for me the gates of Paradise?" None of the inscriptions relating to the
Pope in other ancient paintings before the Reformation approach in the
least to language of this kind.
Merian speaks of a tradition that in the original painting the portrait of
Pope Felix V. was introduced, as well as those of the Emperor Sigismund
and Duke Albert II. all of whom were present at the council; but admitting
this to have been the fact, their respective features would scarcely
remain after the subsequent alterations and repairs that took place.
That intelligent traveller, Mons. Blainville, saw this painting in
January, 1707. He states that as it had been much injured by the weather,
and many of the figures effaced, the government caused it to be retouched
by a painter, whom they imagined to be capable of repairing the ravages it
had sustained, but that his execution was so miserable that they had much
better have let it alone than to have had it so wretchedly bungled. He
wholly rejects any retouching by Holbein. He particularizes two of the
most remarkable subjects, namely, the fat jolly cook, whom Death seizes by
the hand, carrying on his shoulder a spit with a capon ready larded, which
he looks upon with a wishful eye, as if he regretted being obliged to set
out before it was quite roasted. The other figure is that of the blind
beggar led by his dog, whom Death snaps up with one hand, and with the
other cuts the string by which the dog was tied to his master's arm.[56]
The very absurd ascription of the Basle painting to the pencil of Hans
Holbein, who was born near a century afterwards, has been adopted by
several tourists, who have copied the errors of their predecessors,
without taking the pains to make the necessary enquiries, or possessing
the means of obtaining correct information. The name of Holbein,
therefore, as combined with this painting, must be wholly laid aside, for
there is no evidence that he was even employed to retouch it, as some have
inadvertently stated; it was altogether a work unworthy of his talents,
nor does it, even in its latest state, exhibit the smallest indication of
his style of painting. This matter will be resumed hereafter, but in the
mean time it may be necessary to correct the mistake of that truly learned
and meritorious writer, John George Keysler, who, in his instructive and
entertaining travels, has inadvertently stated that the Basle painting was
executed by Hans Bock or Bok, a celebrated artist of that city;[57] but it
is well known that this person was not born till the year 1584.
The Basle painting is no longer in existence; for on the 2d of August,
1806, and for reasons that have not been precisely ascertained, an
infuriated mob, in which were several women, who carried lanterns to light
the expedition, tumultuously burst the inclosure which contained the
painting, tore it piecemeal from the walls, and in a very short space of
time completely succeeded in its total demolition, a few fragments only
being still preserved in the collection of Counsellor Vischer at his
castle of Wildensheim, near Basle. This account of its destruction is
recorded in Millin's Magazin Encyclopedique among the nouvelles
litteraires for that year; but the Etrenne Helvetique for the above year
has given a different account of the matter; it states that the painting
having been once more renovated in the year 1703, fell afterwards into
great decay, being entirely peeled from the wall--that this circumstance
had, in some degree, arisen from the occupation of the cloister by a
ropemaker--that the wall having been found to stand much in the way of
some new buildings erected near the spot, the magistrates ventured, but
not without much hesitation, to remove the cloister with its painting
altogether in the year 1805--and that this occasioned some disturbance in
the city among the common people, but more particularly with those who had
resided in its neighbourhood, and conceived a renewed attachment to the
painting.
Of this Dance of Death very few specific copies have been made. M.
Heinecken[58] has stated that it was engraved in 1544, by Jobst Denneker
of Augsburg; but he has confounded it with a work by this artist on the
other Dance of Death ascribed to Holbein, and which will be duly noticed
hereafter. The work which contained the earliest engravings of the Basle
painting, can on this occasion be noticed only from a modern reprint of it
under the following title: "Der Todten-Tantz wie derselbe in der
weitberuhmten Stadt Basel als ein Spiegel menslicher beschaffenheit gantz
kuntlich mit lebendigen farben gemahlet, nicht ohne nutzliche vernunderung
zu schen ist. Basel, bey Joh. Conrad und Joh. Jacob von Mechel, 1769,
12mo." that is, "The Dance of Death, painted most skilfully, and in lively
colours, in the very famous town of Basel, as a mirror of human life, and
not to be looked on without useful admiration."
The first page has some pious verses on the painting in the church-yard of
the Predicants, of which the present work contains only ten subjects,
namely, the cardinal, the abbess, the young woman, the piper, the jew, the
heathen man, the heathen woman, the cook, the painter, and the painter's
wife. On the abbess there is the mark D. R. probably that of the engraver,
two cuts by whom are mentioned in Bartsch's work.[59] On the cut of the
young woman there is the mark G S with the graving knife. They are
coarsely executed, and with occasional variations of the figures in
Merian's plates. The rest of the cuts, thirty-two in number, chiefly
belong to the set usually called Holbein's. All the cuts in this
miscellaneous volume have German verses at the top and bottom of each page
with the subjects. If Jansen, who usually pillages some one else, can be
trusted or understood, there was a prior edition of this book in 1606,
with cuts having the last-mentioned mark, but which edition he calls the
Dance of Death at Berne;[60] a title, considering the mixture of subjects,
as faulty as that of the present book, of which, or of some part of it,
there must have been a still earlier edition than the above-mentioned one
of 1606, as on the last cut but one of this volume there is the date 1576,
and the letters G S with the knife. It is most probable that this artist
completed the series of the Basle Dance, and that some of the blocks
having fallen into the hands of the above printers, they made up and
published the present mixed copy. Jost Amman is said to have engraved 49
plates of the Dance of Death in 1587. These are probably from the Basle
painting.[61]
The completest copies of this painting that are now perhaps extant, are to
be found in a well-known set of engravings in copper, by Matthew Merian,
the elder, the master of Hollar. There are great doubts as to their first
appearance in 1621, as mentioned by Fuessli and Heinecken, but editions
are known to exist with the respective dates of 1649, 1696, 1698, 1725,
1744, 1756, and 1789. Some of these are in German, and the rest are
accompanied with a French translation by P. Viene. They are all
particularly described by Peignot.[62] Merian states in his preface that
he had copied the paintings several years before, and given his plates to
other persons to be published, adding that he had since redeemed and
retouched them. He says this Dance was repaired in 1568 by Hans Hugo
Klauber, a citizen of Basle, a fact also recorded on the cut of the
painter himself, his wife, Barbara Hallerin, and his son, Hans Birich, by
the before-mentioned artist, G. S., and that it contained the portraits of
Pope Felix V., the Emperor Sigismund, and Albert, King of the Romans, all
of whom assisted at the Council of Basle in the middle of the 15th
century, when the painting was probably executed.
A greatly altered and modernised edition of Merian's work was published in
1788, 8vo. with the following title, "La Danse des Morts pour servir de
miroir a la nature humaine, avec le costume dessine a la moderne, et des
vers a chaques figures. Au Locle, chez S. Girardet libraire." This is on
an engraved frontispiece, copied from that in Merian. The letter-press is
extracted from the French translation of Merian, and the plates, which are
neatly etched, agree as to general design with his; but the dresses of
many of the characters are rather ludicrously modernised. Some moral
pieces are added to this edition, and particularly an old and popular
treatise, composed in 1593, intitled "L'Art de bien vivre et de bien
mourir."
A Dance of Death is recorded with the following title "Todtentantz durch
alle Stande der Menschen," Leipsig, durch David de Necker, formschneider.
1572, 4to.[63] Whether this be a copy of the Basle or the Berne painting,
must be decided on inspection, or it may possibly be a later edition of
the copy of the wood-cuts of Lyons, that will be mentioned hereafter.
In the little Basle, on the opposite side of the Rhine, there was a
nunnery called Klingenthal, erected towards the end of the 13th century.
In an old cloister, belonging to it there are the remains of a Dance of
Death painted on its walls, and said to have been much ruder in execution
than that in the Dominican cemetery at Basle. On this painting there was
the date 1312. In the year 1766 one Emanuel Ruchel, a baker by trade, but
an enthusiastic admirer of the fine arts, made a copy in water colours of
all that remained of this ancient painting, and which is preserved in the
public library at Basle.[64]
The numerous mistakes that have been made by those writers who have
mentioned the Basle painting have been already adverted to by M. Peignot,
and are not, in this place, worthy of repetition.[65] That which requires
most particular notice, and has been so frequently repeated, is the making
Hans Holbein the painter of it, who was not born till a considerable time
after its execution, and even for whose supposed retouching of a work,
almost beneath his notice in point of art, there is not the slightest
authority.
In the small organ chapel, or, according to some, in the porch, of the
church of St. Mary at Lubeck in Lower Alsace, there is, or was, a very
ancient Dance of Death, said to have been painted in 1463. Dr. Nugent, who
has given some account of it, says, that it is much talked of in all parts
of Germany; that the figures were repaired at different times, as in 1588,
1642, and last of all in 1701. The verses that originally accompanied it
were in low Dutch, but at the last repair it was thought proper to change
them for German verses which were written by Nathaniel Schlott of
Dantzick. The Doctor has given an English translation of them, made for
him by a young lady of Lubeck.[66] This painting has been engraved, and
will be again mentioned. Leipsic had also a Dance of Death, but no
particulars of it seem to have been recorded.
In 1525 a similar dance was painted at Anneberg in Saxony, which Fabricius
seems alone to have noticed. He also mentions another in 1534, at the
palace of Duke George at Dresden.[67] This is described in a German work
written on the subject generally, by Paul Christian Hilscher, and
published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It
consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the
building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious
structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separate print, on a
larger scale, varying considerably from the usual mode of representing the
Macaber Dance, is given in Anthony Wecken's Chronicle of Dresden, printed
in German at Dresden 1680, folio. It is said to have been removed in 1721
to the church-yard of Old Dresden.
Nicolai Karamsin has given a very brief, but ludicrous, account of a Dance
of Death in the cross aisle of the Orphan House at Erfurth;[68] but
Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that
it was painted on the panels between the windows of the cell inhabited by
Luther.[69] In all probability the same place is intended by both these
writers.
There is some reason to suppose that there was a Dance of Death at
Nuremberg. Misson, describing a wedding in that city, states that the
bridegroom and his company sat down on one side of the church and the
bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon
the wall. This would seem very like a Dance of Death, if the circumstance
of the figure being on both sides of the church did not excite a doubt on
the subject.
Whether there ever was a Macaber Dance at Berne of equal antiquity with
that of Basle has not been ascertained: but Sandrart, in his article for
Nicolas Manuel Deutch, a celebrated painter at Berne, in the beginning of
the 16th century, has recorded a Dance of Death painted by him in oil, and
regrets that a work materially contributing to the celebrity of that city
had been so extremely neglected that he had only been able to lay before
the readers the following German rhymes which had been inscribed on it:
Manuel aller welt figur,
Hastu gemahlt uf diese mur
Nu must sterben da, hilft kun fund:
Bist nit sicher minut noch stund.
Which he thus translates:
Cunctorum in muris pictis ex arte figuris.
Tu quoque decedes; etsi hoc vix tempore credes.
Then Manuel's answer:
Kilf eineger Heiland! dru ich dich bitt:
Dann hic ist gar kein Bleibens nit
So mir der Tod mein red wird stellen
So bhut euch Gott, mein liebe Gsellen.
That is, in Latin:
En tibi me credo, Deus, hoc dum sorte recedo
Mors rapiat me, te, reliquos sociosque, valete!
To which account M. Fuseli adds, that this painting, equally remarkable
for invention and character, was retouched in 1553; and in 1560, to render
the street in which it was placed more spacious, entirely demolished.
There were, however, two copies of it preserved at Berne, both in water
colours, one by Albrech Kauw, the other a copy from that by Wilhelm
Stettler, a painter of Berne, and pupil of Conrad Meyer of Zurich. The
painting is here said to have been in _fresco_ on the wall of the
Dominican cemetery.[70]
The verses that accompanied this painting have been mentioned as
containing sarcastical freedoms against the clergy; and as Manuel had
himself undergone some persecutions on the score of religion at the time
of the Reformation, this is by no means improbable. There is even a
tradition that he introduced portraits of some of his friends, who
assisted in bringing about that event.
In 1832, lithographic copies of the Berne painting, after the drawings of
Stettler, were published at Berne, with a portrait of Manuel; and a set of
very beautiful drawings in colours, made by some artist at Berne, either
after those by Stettler or Kauw, in the public library, are in the
possession of the writer of this essay. They, as well as the lithographic
prints, exhibit Manuel's likeness in the subject of the painter.
One of the bridges at Lucerne was covered with a Macaber Dance, executed
by a painter named Meglinger, but at what time we are not informed. It is
said to have been very well painted, but injured greatly by injudicious
retouchings; yet there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the merit
of the paintings, which are or were thirty-six in number, and supposed to
have been copied from the Basle dance. Lucerne has also another of the
same kind in the burial ground of the parish church of Im-hof. One of the
subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, the founder of a musical
society, is Death playing on the violin, and summoning the canon to
follow him, who, not in the least terrified, marks the place in the book
he was reading, and appears quite disposed to obey. This Dance is probably
more modern than the other.[71] The subject of Death performing on the
above instrument to some person or other is by no means uncommon among the
old painters.
M. Maurice Rivoire, in his very excellent description of the cathedral of
Amiens, mentions the cloister of the Machabees, originally called, says
he, the cloister of Macabre, and, as he supposes, from the name of the
author of the verses. He gives some lines that were on one of the walls,
in which the Almighty commands Death to bring all mortals before him.[72]
This cloister was destroyed about the year 1817, but not before the
present writer had seen some vestiges of the painting that remained on one
of the sides of the building.
M. Peignot has a very probable conjecture that the church-yard of Saint
Maclou, at Rouen, had a Macaber Dance, from a border or frieze that
contains several emblematical subjects of mortality. The place had more
than once been destroyed.[73] On the pillars of the church at Fescamp, in
Normandy, the Dance of Death was sculptured in stone, and it is in
evidence that the castle of Blois had formerly this subject represented in
some part of it.
In the course of some recent alterations in the new church of the
Protestants at Strasburg, formerly a Dominican convent, the workmen
accidentally uncovered a Dance of Death that had been whitewashed, either
for the purpose of obliteration or concealment. This painting seems to
differ from the usual Macaber Dance, not always confined like that to two
figures only, but having occasionally several grouped together. M.
Peignot has given some more curious particulars relating to it, extracted
from a literary journal by M. Schweighaeuser, of Strasburg.[74] It is to be
hoped that engravings of it will be given.
Chorier has mentioned the mills of Macabrey, and also a piece of land with
the same appellation, which he says was given to the chapter of St.
Maurice at Vienne in Dauphine, by one Marc Apvril, a citizen of that
place. He adds, that he is well aware of the Dance of Macabre. Is it not,
therefore, probable, that the latter might have existed at Vienne, and
have led to the corruption of the above citizen's name by the common
people.[75]
Misson has noticed a Dance of Death in St. Mary's church at Berlin, and
obscurely referred to another in some church at Nuremberg.
Bruckmann, in his Epistolae Itinerariae, vol. v. Epist. xxxii. describes
several churches and other religious buildings at Vienna, and among them
the monastery of the Augustinians, where, he says, there is a painting of
a house with Death entering one of the windows by a ladder.
In the same letter he describes a chapel of Death in the above monastery,
which had been decorated with moral paintings by Father Abraham a St.
Clara, one of the monks. Among these were, 1. Death demolishing a student.
2. Death attacking a hunter who had just killed a stag. 3. Death in an
apothecary's shop, breaking the phials and medicine boxes. 4. Death
playing at draughts with a nobleman. 5. Harlequin making grimaces at
Death. A description of this chapel, and its painting was published after
the good father's decease. Nuremberg, 1710, 8vo.
The only specimen of it in Holland that has occurred on the present
occasion is in the celebrated _Orange-Salle_, which constitutes the grand
apartment of the country seat belonging to the Prince of Orange in the
wood adjacent to the Hague. In three of its compartments, Death is
represented by skeletons darting their arrows against a host of
opponents.[76]
Nor has Italy furnished any materials for the present essay. Blainville
has, indeed, described a singular and whimsical representation of Death in
the church of St. Peter the Martyr, at Naples, in the following words. "At
the entrance on the left is a marble with a representation of Death in a
grotesque form. He has two crowns on his head, with a hawk on his fist, as
ready for hunting. Under his feet are extended a great number of persons
of both sexes and of every age. He addresses them in these lines:
Eo so la morte che caccio
Sopera voi jente mondana,
La malata e la sana,
Di, e notte la percaccio;
Non fugge, vessuna intana
Per scampare dal mio laczio
Che tutto il mondo abbraczio,
E tutta la jente humana
Perche nessuno se conforta,
Ma prenda spavento
Ch'eo per comandamento
Di prender a chi viene la sorte.
Sia vi per gastigamento
Questa figura di morte,
E pensa vie di fare forte
Tu via di salvamento.
Opposite to the figure of Death is that of a man dressed like a tradesman
or merchant, who throws a bag of money on a table, and speaks thus:
Tutti ti volio dare
Se mi lasci scampare.
To which Death answers:
Se mi potesti dare
Quanto si pote dimandare
Non te pote scampare la morte
Se te viene la sorte.[77]
It can hardly be supposed that this subject was not known in Spain, though
nothing relating to it seems to have been recorded, if we except the poem
that has been mentioned in p. 25, but no Spanish painting has been
specified that can be called a regular Macaber Dance. There are grounds,
however, for believing that there was such a painting in the cathedral of
Burgos, as a gentleman known to the author saw there the remains of a
skeleton figure on a whitewashed wall.