Las imágenes de la buena muerteperspectivas históricas y culturales sobre el Arte de Bien Morir (siglo XV)

Abstract

The objective of this thesis was to make a historical, iconographic and anthropological investigation of the first incunabulum in Spanish language of the Ars Moriendi that was printed in the Iberian Peninsula. This book called the Arte de Bien Morir y Breve Confesionario was printed by Pablo Hurus, in the city of Zaragoza, around 1480. This codex is currently in the Library of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de Escorial, Spain. The central problem of this research was to analyze: what was the ideal model of good Christian death proposed by the Arte de Bien Morir? This main question was accompanied by three specific ones. The first specific objective was to analyze what was the role of the Arte de Bien Morir in the process of persuasion of the reader / spectator and in the encouragement of religious practices that sought to guarantee the right to die in a Christian way in the fifteenth century. The second was to explain what was the role of the laity in the conquest of individual salvation within Christian logic. The third and final objective was to analyze the role of images in the propagation and success of the pedagogy of good dying in the late Middle Ages. To achieve the objectives of our research, the work methodology used was to make the iconographic analysis make the iconographic analysis of the eleven engravings of the codex of the Arte de Bien Morir and, secondly, the comparison of these with other contemporary images that illustrated both the Latin or vernacular versions of the Ars Moriendi as well as other images produced at the time. Therefore, our thesis sought to contribute to a deeper study of the analysis of engravings in addition to demonstrating their intention to impact social, religious, and cultural practices.