Triomf van de dood 1750

Silvester Pomarede made this print titled 'Triumph of Death' after a painting by Titian, but what does this image tell us about the society in which it was made? The title and Latin inscription refer to Petrarch, an Italian scholar from the 1300s. Petrarch wrote about the triumph of death as a way of expressing the omnipresence of mortality. In this image, we see Death on a triumphal chariot pulled by oxen, flattening people as it passes. It’s a reminder that no one, regardless of their social status, can escape death. We can think about images of death like this as memento mori – symbols that remind us of our own mortality. To understand images like this, we need to delve into the culture that created them, exploring both the visual and literary sources that gave them meaning.