Dance of Death Facsimile Edition

The Dance of Death is a lavish manuscript compilation of allegories on death. The Master of Philippa of Guelders and others illuminated the book in Paris in the first decade of the sixteenth century. The miniatures and accompanying verses remind the reader/viewer repeatedly of the transitory nature of earthly glory and the inevitability of death. The manuscript boasts seventy-eight half-page miniatures with elaborate painted borders populated by acanthus vines, putti (naked youths), human skulls, birds, insects, and fantastic creatures.

The manuscript's principal texts are the Dance of Death, in which men of all social classes are invited to dance with death at gravesites; the poem of the Three Living and Three Dead, a moralizing tale by Baudouin de Condé (d. 1280); and the Dance of Death of the Women by Martial d'Auvergne (d. 1508).

A Painter Much in Demand

The Master of Philippa of Guelders, who may have trained in Bourges, was active in Paris in the years around 1500. He enjoyed commissions to illuminate literary, liturgical, and devotional manuscripts from aristocratic and royal patrons, including Louis XII (1462-1515), King of France.

In the Dance of Death, he painted the opening image of the author of the Dance of Death (fol. 1r) and the illustrations of the Dance of Death of the Women (fols. 23v-43v). The master's painting style is distinctive for faces with delicate features and small mouths. He favors deep red robes highlighted with gold, as can be seen in the representations of the knight's lady and the squire's lady (fols. 26v and 27v).

A Model in Print

The miniatures illustrating the Dance of Death of the Women are derived from the woodcuts of the Parisian printed edition of 1491 by Guy Marchant, but the Master of Philippa of Guelders altered his model. Unlike the printed version, in which half of the women appear in lower-class dress, the master has clothed most of his women, even those whose roles are menial, in the dress of the aristocracy, providing a more pointed lesson to the manuscript's patron, who must have come from the highest ranks of society.

Dialogues with Death

The bulk of the pages of the two Dance of Death poems is devoted to a dialogue (sixteen lines of French verse) between Death (eight lines) and a living person (eight lines) of a particular occupation, ranging from pope to laborer and from queen to chambermaid. Initial majuscules and colorful painted line fillers make the poetic form apparent. The dialogue is envisioned in the miniature at the top of the page as an encounter between a skeleton (often wielding a weapon) and the living human in a landscape or interior setting.

In the miniatures, the living protagonists can often be identified by their dress or attribute. For example, the physician is pictured holding up a urine specimen for inspection (fol. 11v). The female theologian carries a large book and the witch a broom (fols. 31v and 39v).

The Work of a Single Scribe

The manuscript’s text was written by a single scribe in two columns in French Bâtarde, a formal cursive-style script favored for French-language texts. Rubrics in blue are a striking feature of the Dance of Death of the Women: the longer rubrics are of a general moralizing character and sometimes quote ancient authorities, and the short rubrics name the poem's speakers.

From the Library of Louis XIV's Minister of State

Jean Ballesdens (d. 1675) bequeathed the manuscript to Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683); the gold-tooled binding of red morocco features Colbert's heraldry. The Bibliothèque royale purchased Colbert's collection in 1732. From the Bibliothèque royale it entered the Bibliothèque nationale (now Bibliothèque nationale de France).