Unrecorded edition and unique copy of the Dance macabre des hommes

48a La dance macabre des hommes

Paris: widow of Jehan Treperel and Jehan Jehannot, [c. 1512-22.]

8°, 192 mm x 134 mm. 28 leaves: A4, B8, C-D4, E8, front and back flyleaf.Watermarks: letter ‘B’ with a cross. – One column of 18 resp. 30-31 lines. Printed in Treperel’s Lettre Bâtarde 97B. 46 woodcuts of 31 blocks, 1 full-page illustration on the last leaf concluding the text with a last judgement. – In good condition, minimal dampstaining on the upper margins and a little more visible on the lower margins. – 20th century black morocco binding, gilt turn-ins and gilt edges, signed “Gruel”.

PROVENANCE: 1. H. P. Kraus; New York, cat. 135, Important French Illustrated Books, no. 10b. 2. Collection Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt, OS 1030.

TEXT: The long and continuous tradition of the Danse macabre in France originated in the verses composed with the mural painting of the Dance of Death on the churchwalls of the Cimetière des Saints Innocents in Paris in 1424.The fresco was destroyed in 1634 but had been preserved in the woodcuts of Guy Marchant’s Parisian edition of 1485. The authorship of the poem accompanying the illustrations has never been conclusively established, although it was ascribed from an early date to Jean Gerson, chancellor of the Sorbonne; indeed, its didactic tone is strongly reminiscent of the sermons for which Gerson was so famous. If not Gerson himself, it is probable that the author was a member of the theologian’s circle, although the French text had been ascribed to Jean Lefèvre. Marchant’s book quickly attained great popularity, inspiring imitations by printers in Paris, Lyon, and Troyes.The original edition sold out almost immediately, and was followed in 1486 by an expanded edition. In the same year Marchant published a Danse macabre des femmes. The text, written in French verse, is structured as a dialogue between Death and members of all social classes, given in descending hierarchical order: the pope, the emperor, the cardinal, the knight, the schoolteacher, the burgher, the Franciscan and so on, followed by a poem of the trois mortz et des trois vifs (the three dead and the three living).

ILLUSTRATION: The 46 woodcuts here (c. 85 x 63 mm, some, as on fol.A3r are 80 x 63 mm, though) are popular interpretations of the woodcuts of Guy Marchant’s Paris edition of 1485, often with black floors (tiles or grass).The volume ends with a full-page woodcut showing the Last Judgement. After Guy Marchant’s successful 1485 edition, the Danse macabre was disseminated throughout mid-western Europe, and printers in Paris, Lyon,Troyes and Genève contributed to the popularity of the text. Furthermore, even luxurious manuscripts were produced after the unpretentious looking prints. As a result, the various editions are quite clearly dependent on one another. Our woodcuts are close copies of the Couteau & Ménard edition of 1492, or of Nicole de la Barre’s Dance of Death which he had printed for Jean Treperel I in July 1500. Nicole de la Barre had his woodcarver reduce the woodcut series of Couteau & Ménard in order to fit an octavo format. Our book and its sister edition, the Dance macabre des femmes (cf. no. 48 b. in this catalogue), are characterized by rough, strong shapes and outlines to the figures and background landscapes, lending the whole cycle an expressiveness unsurpassed in later editions. The repeated re-use of some woodblocks is due to the fact that Treperel’s edition features more representatives of the social class system than de la Barre’s. Consequently, some of the less typical figures are employed to represent several social orders at the same time, for example the burgher.

PRINTER: The colophon states, that Jean Treperel I’s widow, together with her son-in-law Jehan Jehannot printed the book in Rue Neuve de Nostre Dame in Paris.The gothic lettering used here is the same as in the Dance macabre des femmes (Claudin II, 161). Jean Treperel I died in 1511, thus, the volume at hand must have been published after that date although it is impossible to determine the exact period during which his widow and son-in-law ran the press together. However, Dalbanne states that the two must have co-operated between 1511 and 1522. If we assume, with Dalbanne, that the Danse macabre des hommes was immediately followed by the Danse macabre des femmes of Jean Treperel II,we may conclude that both prints may have been edited in 1522, when the co-operation of Jehannot and Treperel’s widow ceased.

RARITY:Unique copy, unrecorded in Brunet and in the specialized bibliographies. For many years, the Bern copy of the Danse macabre (Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Inc V 120), was seen as a second exemplar of our edition, but was found to be a copy of another version, differing in regard to the frontispiece and the concluding full-page woodcut. Our copy concludes with a Last Judgement whereas the Bern incunabula, which is undated, shows the resurrection of the dead.

LITERATURE: Claudin 1900; Dalbanne 1936; Layet 2000 A (including all the relevant models); Fein 2000.