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The Art of Dying Well in the 15th Century: Ars Moriendi

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Ars Moriendi, a popular genre in the early Christian literature, was first appeared in the midst of the fifteenth century. It is a guide book that explains how a Christian should die in order to gain the salvation. Ars Moriendi which was written as a necessity in an era when the deadly plague terrorized Europe and caused the death of millions of people became the most popular book of the medieval literature and was translated into many major European languages. The original Ars Moriendi, known as “the longer version”, was written in Latin in 1415 as a manuscript consisting of six chapters. By the 1450s, its shorter and illustrated versions were published as a result of the advances in printing methods in book- publishing in Europe. The shorter version was mostly printed from wood blocks on which both images and text were carved simultaneously. With this aspect, the woodcuts in shorter edition of Ars Moriendi are regarded as one of the first examples of printmaking tradition in Europe. After briefly discussing the history of wood-block printing and block-books in Europe, the article aims to give a general perspective on how and under what circumstances Ars Moriendi literature appeared in the 15th century and to analyze the longer and shorter versions of Ars Moriendi.

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The Art of Dying Well , Ars Moriendi , Block , Book , The Fifteenth Century , Black Death

Journal Of Institute Of Fine Arts

133