Home / Browse / Illustrated / Ars Moriendi [Inspiration Against Despair].

(BLOCK BOOK.)

Ars Moriendi [Inspiration Against Despair].

An extremely rare block book leaf, one of only two known to survive from this edition of the Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying). Block books were a short-lived book format that coexisted with the earliest books printed using movable type. They were composed of individual woodcuts (often hand-coloured), and were usually based on older works that had circulated as manuscripts. The Art of Dying taught Christians how to avoid sin on the deathbed, and the illustrations depicted devils competing with angels and saints for a dying man's soul. This leaf is the ninth in a series of eleven images, showing the dying man protected from despair by a vision of the Penitent Thief, St. Peter, Mary Magdalene (carrying her ointment jar), and an angel. The series of images to which this leaf belongs is first recorded in a manuscript of c. 1420–1430 in the Wellcome Library. The images were then engraved by the Master E. S., an anonymous artist of the Upper Rhine, from which various blocks were cut and used for both block books and incunabular editions (GW 2571 ff). The text accompanying this particular series of woodcuts is known as "Quamvis secundum philosophum tertio ethicorum" and block book editions usually had a page of text and a woodcut printed next to each other on one side of the sheet, which may well have been the case with this leaf. The actual woodblock used for this printing has been traced to its use in an uncoloured block book in the Herzog August Bibliotek, Wolfenbuttel, xylogr. 8, which is dated to c. 1480–85 (the same woodcut is recorded with the text in the banderoles in German rather than Latin, as here; see HAB xylogr. 7).

Quarto (248 × 188 mm). Single leaf from a block book, contemporary hand-coloured woodcut printed on one side of the leaf only. Mounted and framed. A few small repairs to verso. Excellent condition.

Don't understand our descriptions? Try reading our Glossary

Ask Us a Question | Print | Add to wishlist
Email to a Friend