Studia do Dziejów Wawelu (4.1978)

up in art as early as the XIth century. A more recent example of the fact is a painting, ascribed to
Piętro Lorenzetti and dated about 1348 (fig. 68). The same concept is doubtless at the root of some
representations of The Dance of Death, from the XVth and the beginning of the XVIth century and
of the poem I already mentioned, Le mors de la Pomme, or The Hours of Simon Vostres. Particularly
relevant in this caseis a design with an inscription in the Biblia Pauperum of Metten of 1414 (Munich
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cim. 8201, fol. 97v) where, at the foot of the crucifbdon appears a per-
sonification of Death with the words: «Crux est destructio mortis», as well as a personification of
Life with the inscription: «Crux est reparatio vitae». But in the lower corner, around the depiction
of the rising dead runs the motto: «terra concussa reddidit mortuos...», recalling the figurę of
Earth on the king's breast.

In conclusion, it may be said that the capital cycle, although including a row of particular
iconographic concepts, comprises in its entirety problems of death seen through the eyes of ortho-
dox Christianity. The canopy symbolises heaven and the images which are beneath it look down
upon the righteous man at the moment of his death and seem to remind him that, because of Redemp-
tion, undertaken with the will of God, carried out by Christ with the participation of the Virgin
Mary, the road to heaven is open. The essence of the psychological problem of overcoming death is
thus clearly presented in the tomb of Casimir Jagellon. The sovereign is still alive, but in imagi-
nation he has already crossed the threshold of eternity and his mind is turned to matters of the fu-
turę life. In Stwosz's time such an attitude, at the supremę moment, was the most correct; it was
propagated by theological treatises, by pious literaturę and most of all, by the numerous versions
of the Ars mońendi.