Monday, February 13, 2012
Alas, Poor Yorick
Thanks to Eric Thomson for drawing my attention to two illustrations in works by Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). In a curious variation on the vanitas theme, the illustrations show a skeleton contemplating a skull.
The first is from De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1543), p. 164:
The inscription on the tomb in this first illustration comes from Elegiae in Maecenatem 1.38: "Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt." In the translation by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff: "Genius means life, all else will belong to death."
The second illustration, similar to the first, comes from Suorum De Humani Corporis Fabrica Librorum Epitome (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1543):
The inscription on the tomb in this second illustration comes from Silius Italicus 12.243-244:
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The first is from De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1543), p. 164:
The inscription on the tomb in this first illustration comes from Elegiae in Maecenatem 1.38: "Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt." In the translation by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff: "Genius means life, all else will belong to death."The second illustration, similar to the first, comes from Suorum De Humani Corporis Fabrica Librorum Epitome (Basel: J. Oporinus, 1543):
The inscription on the tomb in this second illustration comes from Silius Italicus 12.243-244:solvitur omne decus leto niveosque per artusIn J. Wight Duff's translation:
it Stygius color et formae populatur honores.
Death robbed him of all his beauty: a Stygian hue spread over his snow-white skin and destroyed his comeliness.
