Stained Glass
Dance of Death
Berne Muenster Cathedral

After numerous plagues, the crusades, and living in a society with a high infant mortality rate, various themes arose inviting death and mortality into literature and the visual and musical arts. The skull was, and is, a constant reminder of mortality and a durable symbol of the transition to the next plane of existence. Moreover, the iconographic and symbolic inclusion of a skull in art during the Renaissance has an eschatological connotation, in that it represents the bridge between this life and the Christian belief of what comes after.
This inclusion of a skull in art is an element of a theme called memento mori, Latin for “remember you must die”.
Enrico de Pascale defines the memento mori theme as “Symbolic elements, such as a candle, skull, and clock, are intended to stimulate moralistic reflection on the futility of worldly acquisition and the brevity of our time on Earth.”<sup>1

1</sup>Enrico De Pascale. Death And Resurrection In Art (Los Angeles, California: Getty Publications, 2009), 86-88.