It is equally difficult to explain the delay on the part of the Trechsels in publishing the book, unless for a similar reason—a belief that the times were inopportune for the issue of such a satire. The cuts were at length published in 1538 under the title of “Les Simulachres & Historiees Faces de la Mort, avtant elegammēt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées” (The Images and Storied Aspects of Death as elegantly delineated, as ingeniously imagined). From this it will be seen that the popular title for the work, “The Dance of Death,” by which it was already known by the end of the sixteenth century, is an incorrect one. The woodcuts were “Pictures of Death,” and though the characters introduced are largely those of the earlier representations, Holbein has entirely abandoned the general motive of a dance of the living and the dead, which was the leading characteristic of the numerous wall-paintings. Instead, each sheet forms a separate dramatic scene, in which Death, in the guise of a skeleton, claims the living as his prey. In Basel, however, where the wall-painting of the Dominican monastery was one of the most familiar sights, and one in which the citizens took great pride, the title by which it was known, “The Dance of Death,” was also popularly applied to the woodcuts shortly after their appearance, and the name has adhered to them ever since.
FIRST EDITION OF THE DANCE
The first edition is in the form of a small quarto. On the title-page below the title is a printer’s mark or emblem, which is not of Holbein’s designing or Lützelburger’s cutting, representing three heads—of an old man, a youth, and a woman—joined together, two in profile, and the central one, that of the woman, full face, with a star on her forehead, and a wreath above. From the shoulders spring a pair of peacock’s wings, the whole resting on a pedestal, on the top of which is an open book inscribed in Greek characters, “Gnothi Seauton,” and at the foot a serpent and two chained globes, one surmounted by a small cross, and the other with two wings. This emblem has the further motto “Usus me Genuit.” At the bottom of the page is printed, “A Lyon, Soubz lescu de Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII.” At the end of the book, within an ornamental border, is the imprint: “Excvdebant Lvgdvni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel Fratres. 1538.” Next to the title-page comes a preface of six pages, which is followed by seven pages descriptive of “diverses tables de Mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l’escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par Philosophes.” After these verbal sketches come the woodcuts themselves, forty-one in all, each one printed on a separate page, and, in place of the German titles of the various sets of early proofs, a text in Latin above the pictures, and beneath them a four-lined verse in French, written by Gilles Corrozet, containing moral reflections appropriate to the various subjects. The subjects themselves are not arranged in the same order as in the proof impressions, in which the clergy are separated from the laity, and the men from the women, beginning with the Pope and ending with the Little Child. In the Lyon edition the Emperor follows the Pope, and is in turn followed by the King, the Cardinal, the Empress, and so on. The pictures are succeeded by a series of descriptions of Death and reflections on mortality of a didactic character, under the title, “Figures de la Mort moralement descriptes, & depeinctes selon l’authorité de l’scripture & des sainctz Peres,” the whole being brought to a conclusion with a discourse, “De la Necessite de la Mort qui ne laisse riens estre pardurable.”
A passage in the French preface is of considerable interest, as it relates to the engraver of the woodcuts. This preface is dedicated “A moult reverende Abbesse de religieux Couuent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame Jehanne de Touszele, Salut dun vray Zele.” The convent of Saint Pierre les Nonnains, of which Madame Jehanne was abbess, was a religious house of long standing, among its inmates being many noble and wealthy ladies. The author of this preface, who only signs it with his motto, “D’un vray zelle,” was Jean de Vauzelles, Pastor of St. Romain and Prior of Montrottier, poet and scholar, one of three famous brothers who took a leading part in the literary life of Lyon. The passage referred to may be translated as follows: “But to return to our figured representations of Death, we have greatly to regret the death of him who has imagined (imaginé) such elegant figures as are herein contained, as much excelling all those heretofore printed (patronées) as the pictures of Apelles or of Zeuxis surpass those of modern times; for his funereal histories, with their gravely versified descriptions, excite such admiration in beholders, that the figures of Death appear to them most lifelike, while those of the living are the very pictures of mortality. It therefore seems to me that Death, fearing that this excellent painter (painctre) would paint him in a manner so lively, that he should be no longer feared as Death, and apprehensive that the artist would thus become immortal, determined to shorten his days, and thus prevent him finishing other subjects which he had already drawn. Among these is one of a waggoner, knocked down and crushed under his broken waggon, the wheels and horses of which appear so frightfully shattered and maimed that it is as fearful to see their overthrow as it is amusing to behold the liquorishness of a figure of Death, who is perceived roguishly sucking the wine out of a broken cask, by means of a reed. To such imperfect subjects, as to the inimitable heavenly bow named Iris, no one has ventured to put the last hand, on account of the bold drawing, perspectives, and shadows contained in this inimitable chef d’œuvre, there so gracefully delineated, that from it we may derive a pleasing sadness and a melancholy pleasure, as in a thing mournfully delightful.”[[478]]
VAUZELLES’ PREFACE TO THE BOOK
This passage is rather confusing, and at one time was supposed to refer to the designer, and not to the engraver of the woodcuts, and that Holbein, therefore, who was alive in 1538, could not have been the author of the designs. Now, however, that more modern research has proved that Lützelburger died in the summer of 1526, leaving several blocks which had been commissioned by the Trechsels unfinished, it becomes clear that Vauzelles, in his preface, is praising the woodcutter, and not the artist. It is true that the word “painctre” is used in one place, and that the term “imaginé” has been taken in the modern sense by earlier writers, whereas it is from the Latin “imaginatus” which has the same meaning as “sculptus.” In old French “ymaginier” is the same as “tailleur d’images,” just as “sculptor” was the common Latin expression for a stone-cutter or engraver. There is the possibility that Vauzelles was ignorant of Holbein’s share in the work, and imagined that both the designing and cutting of the blocks were the work of one man; but this is not very probable, for in the same year the Trechsels published the Old Testament woodcuts, also engraved by Lützelburger, in a second edition of which, issued in the following year, 1539, Holbein’s name as the designer is expressly mentioned in Nicolas Bourbon’s Latin verses which were added to the volume. Bourbon was in Lyon at the time, and in a new edition of his Nugæ, published shortly afterwards, he included a Latin epigram, not given in the first edition of 1533, headed, “De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili,” which undoubtedly refers to Holbein as the painter or deviser of the “Dance of Death.” Taking these facts into consideration, it does not seem probable that Vauzelles would have been ignorant of Holbein’s connection with the work. In any case, the publishers must almost certainly have known it, and it may be conjectured that Bourbon’s verses were written expressly to accompany the “Dance,” just as his other lines were written for the Old Testament woodcuts, but that for some reason they were not used for that purpose.
Woltmann’s contention that Holbein’s name was purposely suppressed on account of the satirical character of the pictures, and that the preface was written with the intent to mystify, may be the correct solution. Holbein’s interest, he says,[[479]] like that of the publisher, rendered it desirable that they should appear anonymously. In Lyon every movement towards the Reformation was zealously opposed by the bishop and the authorities, and the bloody edict against heretics issued by Francis I was put in force. Many of these pictures of Death, especially sheets such as the Pope or the Nun, might have given offence to the strict Catholic party. This would possibly have been all the more serious, had the book appeared with the name of Holbein, who was at that time residing at the court of the Protestant King of England, and was a citizen of Basel, in Switzerland, from whence the new doctrines emanated.
These arguments, however, as far as the suppression of Holbein’s name is concerned, seem a little far-fetched. If certain of the woodcuts were likely to give offence, it is difficult to see how such offence could be removed by merely withholding the artist’s name. It is probable, as already pointed out, that Holbein had no personal interest in the publication either of the “Dance” or the Old Testament pictures, his active co-operation in the work having ceased twelve years or more earlier, when he had completed Lützelburger’s commission for the designs; and under such circumstances it is not likely that the Trechsels would have consulted him as to the use of his name or otherwise. The most reasonable explanation seems to be that it was omitted from the preface through an oversight or some confusion on the part of Vauzelles as to the separate identities of the artist and engraver, which the publisher did not consider was important enough to rectify. If it was safe to issue the book, there was surely no need to indulge in mysteries as to its authorship.
The book had an almost instantaneous success, and new editions followed in the course of a few years. The second edition was issued in 1542 from the same address, but by the brothers Frellon—“A Lyon, A lescu de Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon, freres”—and it has been assumed that the new publishers had acquired the business of the Trechsels. The latter were Germans who had settled in Lyon, the father, Johann Trechsel, having started business there as a printer in 1487. The Frellons were equally well known in the town as publishers, and it is probable that they had become the proprietors of the rival establishment by 1538, and that the Trechsels were then only conducting the printing under their orders, for the preface to the Old Testament pictures, first published in that year, is signed by Franciscus “Frelläus,” and subsequent editions of both publications bore the name of this firm. A third edition, in Latin, was published in the same year, 1542, with the title “Imagines de morte et epigrammata e Gallico idiomate in Latinum translata,” &c. The fourth appeared in 1545, with the title, “Imagines Mortis,” &c., in which Corrozet’s French verses under the cuts were translated into Latin by George œmmel or Æmilius, Luther’s brother-in-law. The only addition to the illustrations was a cut representing a lame beggar, introduced as a tail-piece to one of the discourses on death at the end of the book, but so poorly engraved that it is difficult to trace Holbein’s hand in the design. A fifth edition was issued in the same year, 1545, also under the title “Imagines Mortis,” in which eleven new cuts were added to those which had appeared in earlier editions, or twelve, counting the one of the “Lame Beggar.” These new subjects were, “The Soldier,” “The Gamblers,” “The Drunkards,” “The Fool,” “The Robber,” “The Blind Man,” “The Waggoner,” and four subjects with naked children, in one of which they are represented as hunters, in another they lead a horse upon which one of them is mounted, bearing a standard, while in a third they are engaged in carrying one of their comrades in triumph. These latter cuts have no real connection with the subject-matter of the book, although French verses and Latin texts were added to them in an endeavour to find one, however far-fetched, but the designs are undoubtedly Holbein’s, and must have been drawn by him on the blocks and cut by Lützelburger. It may be conjectured that after the engraver’s death they were sent to Lyon with other unfinished blocks which the Trechsels had ordered from him. Three more editions were issued in 1547, the third of them with the title, “Les Images de la Mort,” and the original French verses of the first edition; and in 1549 a version was published with Italian title and text. In the preface to the latter, Jehan Frellon, who was the sole publisher from 1547 onwards, makes complaint of a pirated edition which had been printed in Venice two years previously.
LATER EDITIONS OF THE BOOK