Libellus de morte et vita aeterna, editio postrema. Cui additae sunt imagines mortis, illustratae epigrammatis G. Aemylii.

£10,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The scarce, first illustrated edition of Lutheran theologian, pupil (and houseguest) of Melanchthon, David Chytraeus’ (1530-1600) eschatological De morte et vita aeterna, with a striking Dance of Death woodcut series after Hans Holbein, printed in this sole edition. Holbein’s original series inspired numerous imitators in subsequent centuries - one estimate suggests up to 100 imitators in the sixteenth century alone - but the series here has not been traced elsewhere and appears to exist solely in the present work. In these extraordinary woodcuts, the skeletal Death is depicted visiting all, Popes and peasants, cardinals and nobles, doctors and usurers, soldiers and children, farmers and pedlars; all are equal before him and none escapes him. Just as in Holbein’s original cuts, Death here has character; ‘he is in turn mocking, aggressive, determined, resigned, and exhibits real human emotion’ (Dancing with Death; Glasgow University Gemmell Collection). Intended as a reminder to live a good life - none of these individuals, even the richest, are able to take anything with them when Death approaches - each woodcut illustrates humanist Reformer Georgius Aemelius, Georg Oemler (1517-1569)‘s translations into Latin of the French verse epigrams that accompanied Holbein’s woodcuts, by Gilles Corrozet. David Chytraeus (1531-1600), or Kochhafe, was professor at Rostock and spent considerable time travelling around Germany, stabilising the union and harmony of the emerging Lutheran Chu

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