The Three Living and the Three Dead in theHoraeof Galiot de Genouillac (Rylands Latin MS 38)

Abstract

The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead was one of the most influential poetic and pictorial traditions of the later Middle Ages. Its moralistic message-repent, for wealth and power count for nothing in the end-ensured that it could be utilized in a wide variety of media and contexts. Appropriately, Three Living and Three Dead illuminations were often included in books of hours (horae) as devotional aids. Although not as prevalent as representations of the funeral or the deathbed, they were usually employed as frontispieces to the prayer cycles in the Office for the Dead. This article analyzes the exquisite yet curiously source: notes in the history of art. winter 2018.