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115-516: The Danse Macabre ( / d ɑː n s m ə ˈ k ɑː b ( r ə )/ ; French pronunciation: [dɑ̃s ma.kabʁ] ), also called the Dance of Death , is an artistic genre of allegory from the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead, or a personification of death , summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to

230-770: A Proto-Celtic form reconstructed as * kwar-is-io -. Alternatively, Pierre-Yves Lambert proposed to translate Parisii as the 'spear people', by connecting the first element to the Old Irish carr ('spear'), derived from an earlier * kwar-sā . In any case, the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology . Residents of the city are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens ( [paʁizjɛ̃] ). They are also pejoratively called Parigots ( [paʁiɡo] ). The Parisii ,

345-410: A blank wall (514a–b). The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows, using language to identify their world (514c–515a). According to the allegory, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality, until one of them finds his way into the outside world where he sees the actual objects that produced

460-530: A fair amount of sunshine. Each year there are a few days when the temperature rises above 32 °C (90 °F). Longer periods of more intense heat sometimes occur, such as the heat wave of 2003 when temperatures exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, reached 40 °C (104 °F) on some days, and rarely cooled down at night. Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and cool nights, but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons. In winter, sunshine

575-720: A huge and emotional crowd down the Champs Élysées towards Notre Dame de Paris and made a rousing speech from the Hôtel de Ville . In the 1950s and the 1960s, Paris became one front of the Algerian War for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen, leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims of Algeria (who, at that time, were French citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians against

690-666: A plot-driven fantasy narrative in an extended fable with talking animals and broadly sketched characters, intended to discuss the politics of the time. Yet, George MacDonald emphasized in 1893 that "A fairy tale is not an allegory." J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings is another example of a well-known work mistakenly perceived as allegorical, as the author himself once stated, "...I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned – with its varied applicability to

805-578: A series of paintings on canvas by Bernt Notke (1440–1509) in Lübeck (1463); the initial fragment of the original Bernt Notke painting Danse Macabre (accomplished at the end of the 15th century) in the St Nicholas' Church , Tallinn , Estonia ; the painting at the back wall of the chapel of Sv. Marija na Škrilinama in the Istrian town of Beram (1474), painted by Vincent of Kastav ; the painting in

920-452: A study Natalie Zemon Davis has shown that the contemporary reception and afterlife of Holbein's designs lent themselves to neither purely Catholic or Protestant doctrine, but could be outfitted with different surrounding prefaces and sermons as printers and writers of different political and religious leanings took them up. Most importantly, " The pictures and the Bible quotations above them were

1035-784: A sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones , inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the Île de la Cité , which gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins. The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left Bank . The Roman town

1150-568: A variety of characters, including the emperor, the pope, the cardinal, the bishop, the abbot, the prioress, the monk, the nun, the doctor, the lawyer, the merchant, the knight, the plowman, the beggar, and the child. The poem is written in rhyme royal, a seven-line stanzaic form that was popular in the Middle Ages. Allegory Writers and speakers typically use allegories to convey (semi-) hidden or complex meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, or events, which together create

1265-527: Is Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft). Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes , Paris covers an oval measuring about 87 km (34 sq mi) in area, enclosed by the 35 km (22 mi) ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique . Paris' last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 gave it its modern form, and created the 20 clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From

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1380-771: Is 450 km (280 mi) southeast of London, 287 km (178 mi) south of Calais , 305 km (190 mi) southwest of Brussels , 774 km (481 mi) north of Marseille , 385 km (239 mi) northeast of Nantes , and 135 km (84 mi) southeast of Rouen . Paris has an oceanic climate within the Köppen climate classification , typical of western Europe. This climate type features cool winters, with frequent rain and overcast skies, and mild to warm summers. Very hot and very cold temperatures and weather extremes are rare in this type of climate. Summer days are usually mild and pleasant, with average temperatures between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and

1495-418: Is a figurative approach, relying on a set of concepts associated with key terms in order to create an allegorical decoding of the text." Allegory has an ability to freeze the temporality of a story, while infusing it with a spiritual context. Mediaeval thinking accepted allegory as having a reality underlying any rhetorical or fictional uses. The allegory was as true as the facts of surface appearances. Thus,

1610-414: Is a testament to the profound impact of an epidemic on people as depicted in art. A disease’s effect can endure past the initial stages of outbreak, in its deep etching upon the culture and society. This can be seen in the artworks and motifs of Danse Macabre as people attempted to cope with the death surrounding them. What is often considered to be the earliest recorded visual example is the lost mural on

1725-433: Is completely neutralized by Death as the ultimate equalizer, so that a sociocritical element is subtly inherent to the whole genre. The Totentanz of Metnitz , for example, shows how a pope crowned with his tiara is being led into Hell by Death. Usually, a short dialogue is attached to each pair of dancers, in which Death is summoning him (or, more rarely, her) to dance and the summoned is moaning about impending death. In

1840-509: Is complex, since it demands we observe the distinction between two often conflated uses of the Greek verb "allēgoreīn," which can mean both "to speak allegorically" and "to interpret allegorically." In the case of "interpreting allegorically," Theagenes appears to be our earliest example. Presumably in response to proto-philosophical moral critiques of Homer (e.g., Xenophanes fr. 11 Diels-Kranz ), Theagenes proposed symbolic interpretations whereby

1955-746: Is derived from its early inhabitants, the Parisii , a Gallic tribe from the Iron Age and the Roman period . The meaning of the Gaulish ethnonym remains debated. According to Xavier Delamarre , it may derive from the Celtic root pario- ('cauldron'). Alfred Holder interpreted the name as 'the makers' or 'the commanders', by comparing it to the Welsh peryff ('lord, commander'), both possibly descending from

2070-600: Is of a subject that directly responds to people's reliance on religion to give them hope. The cultural impact of mass outbreaks of disease are not fleeting or temporary. In their paper on “Black Death, Plagues, and the Danse Macabre. Depictions of Epidemics in Art,” Rittershaus and Eschenberg discuss artistic representations of various epidemics starting with the bubonic plague and extending to cholera and recent epidemics. The suffering and realization of death’s closeness, which

2185-568: Is of higher quality than this man's doing.' For by common acclaim the originals are technically the most marvelous woodcuts ever made ." These woodcuts soon appeared in proofs with titles in German. The first book edition, containing forty-one woodcuts, was published at Lyons by the Treschsel brothers in 1538. The popularity of the work, and the currency of its message, are underscored by the fact that there were eleven editions before 1562, and over

2300-603: Is possible that the Maccabean Martyrs were commemorated in some early French plays, or that people just associated the book's vivid descriptions of the martyrdom with the interaction between Death and its prey. An alternative explanation is that the term entered France via Spain, the Arabic : مقابر , maqabir (pl., "cemeteries") being the root of the word. Both the dialogues and the evolving paintings were ostensive penitential lessons that even illiterate people (who were

2415-440: Is scarce. Days are cool, and nights are cold but generally above freezing, with low temperatures around 3 °C (37 °F). Light night frosts are quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below −5 °C (23 °F). Paris sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. Paris has an average annual precipitation of 641 mm (25.2 in), and experiences light rainfall distributed evenly throughout

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2530-602: Is the capital and largest city of France . With an estimated population of 2,102,650 residents in January 2023 in an area of more than 105 km (41 sq mi), Paris is the fourth-largest city in the European Union and the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance , diplomacy , commerce , culture , fashion , and gastronomy . Because of its leading role in

2645-619: The Champs-Élysées extended the city west to Étoile , while the working-class neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the eastern side of the city grew increasingly crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France. Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity, known as the Age of Enlightenment . Diderot and D'Alembert published their Encyclopédie in 1751, before

2760-825: The College of Sorbonne , and a palace for himself, the Palais-Cardinal . After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the Palais-Royal . Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde civil war, Louis XIV moved his court to a new palace, Versailles , in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city flourished with the Comédie-Française , the Academy of Painting, and

2875-663: The European Space Agency , the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority . The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 81,000-seat Stade de France , built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup , is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis . Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on

2990-738: The French Academy of Sciences . To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the Grands Boulevards . Other marks of his reign were the Collège des Quatre-Nations , the Place Vendôme , the Place des Victoires , and Les Invalides . Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard named

3105-665: The Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Metropolis of Grand Paris , with a population of 6.7 million, was created on 1 January 2016. In 2011, the City of Paris and the national government approved the plans for the Grand Paris Express , totalling 205 km (127 mi) of automated metro lines to connect Paris,

3220-599: The Holy Trinity Church of Hrastovlje , Istria by John of Kastav (1490). A notable example was painted on the cemetery walls of the Dominican Abbey, in Bern , by Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (1484–1530) in 1516/7. This work of art was destroyed when the wall was torn down in 1660, but a 1649 copy by Albrecht Kauw (1621–1681) is extant. There was also a Dance of Death painted around 1430 and displayed on

3335-493: The Montgolfier Brothers launched the first manned flight in a hot air balloon on 21 November 1783. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, as well the primary European centre for book publishing, fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods. On 22 October 1797, Paris was also the site of the first parachute jump in history, by Garnerin . In the summer of 1789, Paris became

3450-532: The Paris Commune held power for two months, before being harshly suppressed by the French army during the " Bloody Week " at the end of May 1871. In the late 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition , which featured the new Eiffel Tower, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution; and the 1900 Universal Exposition gave Paris

3565-599: The Pont Alexandre III , the Grand Palais , the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line. Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism ( Émile Zola ) and Symbolism ( Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine ), and of Impressionism in art ( Courbet , Manet , Monet , Renoir ). By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to about 2,715,000. At the beginning of the century, artists from around

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3680-634: The Pont des Arts . During the Restoration , the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution names; the July Revolution in 1830 (commemorated by the July Column on the Place de la Bastille ) brought to power a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I . The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to

3795-794: The Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. Paris is home to several United Nations organizations including UNESCO, as well as other international organizations such as the OECD , the OECD Development Centre , the International Bureau of Weights and Measures , the International Energy Agency , the International Federation for Human Rights , along with European bodies such as

3910-614: The Siege of Paris (885–886) , for which the then Count of Paris ( comte de Paris ), Odo of France , was elected king of West Francia . From the Capetian dynasty that began with the 987 election of Hugh Capet , Count of Paris and Duke of the Franks ( duc des Francs ), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France. By the end of

4025-454: The arts and sciences and its early adaptation of extensive street lighting, it became known as the City of Light in the 19th century. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region , or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or about 19% of the population of France. The Paris Region had a nominal GDP of €765 billion (US$ 1.064 trillion when adjusted for PPP ) in 2021,

4140-480: The Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité , which form the oldest part of Paris. The river's mouth on the English Channel ( La Manche ) is about 233 mi (375 km) downstream from Paris. Paris is spread widely on both banks of the river. Overall, Paris is relatively flat, and the lowest point is 35 m (115 ft) above sea level . Paris has several prominent hills, the highest of which

4255-521: The 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The Palais de la Cité , the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII , Maurice de Sully , bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity. After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north

4370-465: The 12th-century works of Hugh of St Victor and Edward Topsell 's Historie of Foure-footed Beastes (London, 1607, 1653) and its replacement in the study of nature with methods of categorisation and mathematics by such figures as naturalist John Ray and the astronomer Galileo is thought to mark the beginnings of early modern science. Since meaningful stories are nearly always applicable to larger issues, allegories may be read into many stories which

4485-513: The 13th century onwards have survived (for instance, in the Hospital Church of Wismar or the residential Longthorpe Tower outside Peterborough ). Since they showed pictorial sequences of men and corpses covered with shrouds, those paintings are sometimes regarded as cultural precursors of the new genre. A Danse Macabre painting may show a round dance headed by Death or, more usually, a chain of alternating dead and live dancers. From

4600-644: The 14th century. Printed editions of books began appearing in the 15th century, such as the ones produced by Guy Marchant of Paris. Similarly to the musical or artistic representations, the texts describe living and dead persons being called to dance or form a procession with Death. Danse Macabre texts were often, though not always, illustrated with illuminations and woodcuts. There is one danse macabre text devoted entirely to women: The Danse Macabre of Women . This work survives in five manuscripts, and two printed editions. In it, 36 women of various ages, in Paris, are called from their daily lives and occupations to join

4715-503: The 1860 area of 78 km (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km (33.6 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were annexed to the city, bringing its area to about 105 km (41 sq mi). The metropolitan area is 2,300 km (890 sq mi). Measured from the 'point zero' in front of its Notre-Dame cathedral , Paris by road

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4830-602: The Dance of Death imagery, along with its text, invites a performative reading, informed by specific structures of the verses, the concept of movement, and the understanding of the body language of the danse macabre's protagonists. However, there is scarce evidence surrounding a physical dancing performance tradition of the Dance of Death outside of its other depictions. The Danse Macabre was possibly enacted at village pageants and at court masques , with people " dressing up as corpses from various strata of society ", and may have been

4945-469: The Dance with Death. An English translation of the French manuscript was published by Ann Tukey Harrison in 1994. John Lydgate's Dance of Death is a Middle English poem written in the early 15th century. It is a translation of a French poem of the same name, and it is one of the most popular examples of the Danse Macabre genre. The poem is a moral allegory in which Death leads a procession of people from all walks of life to their graves. The poem includes

5060-731: The Frank , the first king of the Merovingian dynasty , made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845 , but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in

5175-616: The French police and gendarmes arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, and confined them during five days at the Vel d'Hiv ( Vélodrome d'Hiver ), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz . None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the French 2nd Armoured Division and the 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army . General Charles de Gaulle led

5290-639: The Gods of the Iliad actually stood for physical elements. So, Hephestus represents Fire, for instance (for which see fr. A2 in Diels-Kranz ). Some scholars, however, argue that Pherecydes cosmogonic writings anticipated Theagenes allegorical work, illustrated especially by his early placement of Time (Chronos) in his genealogy of the gods, which is thought to be a reinterpretation of the titan Kronos, from more traditional genealogies. In classical literature two of

5405-554: The Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (1302) presents themes of the unity of Christendom with the pope as its head in which the allegorical details of the metaphors are adduced as facts on which is based a demonstration with the vocabulary of logic: " Therefore of this one and only Church there is one body and one head—not two heads as if it were a monster... If, then, the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to

5520-411: The Place Royale, now Place des Vosges . In spite of Henry IV's efforts to improve city circulation, the narrowness of Paris's streets was a contributing factor in his assassination near Les Halles marketplace in 1610. During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu , chief minister of Louis XIII , was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for

5635-456: The Promised Land. Also allegorical is Ezekiel 16 and 17, wherein the capture of that same vine by the mighty Eagle represents Israel's exile to Babylon. Allegorical interpretation of the Bible was a common early Christian practice and continues. For example, the recently re-discovered Fourth Commentary on the Gospels by Fortunatianus of Aquileia has a comment by its English translator: "The principal characteristic of Fortunatianus' exegesis

5750-429: The Revolution, but after 1799 it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000 by 1815. Napoleon replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect that reported directly to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe , and improved the neglected infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the Canal de l'Ourcq , Père Lachaise Cemetery and the city's first metal bridge,

5865-564: The Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned increasingly radical, the king, queen and mayor were beheaded by guillotine in the Reign of Terror , along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised , and the city's churches were closed, sold or demolished. A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris until 9 November 1799 ( coup d'état du 18 brumaire ), when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as First Consul. The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during

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5980-452: The assembly", which originates from ἀγορά ( agora ), "assembly". Northrop Frye discussed what he termed a "continuum of allegory", a spectrum that ranges from what he termed the "naive allegory" of the likes of The Faerie Queene , to the more private allegories of modern paradox literature . In this perspective, the characters in a "naive" allegory are not fully three-dimensional, for each aspect of their individual personalities and of

6095-429: The author may not have recognized. This is allegoresis, or the act of reading a story as an allegory. Examples of allegory in popular culture that may or may not have been intended include the works of Bertolt Brecht , and even some works of science fiction and fantasy, such as The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis . The story of the apple falling onto Isaac Newton 's head is another famous allegory. It simplified

6210-416: The best-known allegories are the Cave in Plato's The Republic (Book VII) and the story of the stomach and its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa ( Livy ii. 32). Among the best-known examples of allegory, Plato 's Allegory of the Cave , forms a part of his larger work The Republic . In this allegory, Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing

6325-399: The black death caused in Europe, were integrated with concepts of morality and Christianity to give rise to the Dance of Death tradition as a direct response to the epidemic. Cholera cases in the nineteenth century inspired a resurgence of Dance of Death depictions after the initial black death depictions, with religious connotations still present but less important. The Dance of Death tradition

6440-604: The book would not have ended with the Ring being destroyed but rather with an arms race in which various powers would try to obtain such a Ring for themselves. Then Tolkien went on to outline an alternative plot for "Lord of The Rings", as it would have been written had such an allegory been intended, and which would have made the book into a dystopia . While all this does not mean Tolkien's works may not be treated as having allegorical themes, especially when reinterpreted through postmodern sensibilities, it at least suggests that none were conscious in his writings. This further reinforces

6555-405: The capital of France, was the most populous city of Europe. By comparison, London in 1300 had 80,000 inhabitants. By the early fourteenth century, so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde , the French word for "shit". During the Hundred Years' War , Paris

6670-549: The care of Peter and his successors, they necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ." This text also demonstrates the frequent use of allegory in religious texts during the Mediaeval Period, following the tradition and example of the Bible. In the late 15th century, the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia , with its elaborate woodcut illustrations, shows the influence of themed pageants and masques on contemporary allegorical representation, as humanist dialectic conveyed them. The denial of medieval allegory as found in

6785-454: The centre stage of the French Revolution . On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides , acquiring thousands of guns, with which it stormed the Bastille , a principal symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune , or city council, met in the Hôtel de Ville and elected a Mayor , the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly , on 15 July. Louis XVI and the royal family were brought to Paris and incarcerated in

6900-403: The city's subway system, the Paris Métro , serves 5.23   million passengers daily. It is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro . Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world and the busiest outside Japan , with 262   million passengers in 2015. Paris has one of the most sustainable transportation systems and is one of only two cities in

7015-435: The city. In 1848, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris. His successor, Napoleon III , alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann , launched a huge public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers and parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes . In 1860, Napoleon III annexed

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7130-402: The curfew led to violent confrontations between the police and demonstrators, in which at least 40 people were killed. The anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962. In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter . Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workers joined

7245-439: The dame who rules the whole world:/ Come and hear my advice / Because I wish to lighten you of this load." Musical settings of the motif include: The Danse Macabre was a frequent motif in poetry, drama and other written literature in the Middle Ages in several areas of western Europe. There is a Spanish Danza de la Muerte , a French Danse Macabre , and a German Totentanz with various Latin manuscripts written during

7360-431: The direct aftermath of the Black Death in Germany and in Spain (where it was known as the Totentanz and la Danza de la Muerte , respectively). The French term Danse Macabre may derive from the Latin Chorea Machabæorum , literally "dance of the Maccabees." In 2 Maccabees , a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, the grim martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons is described and was a well-known medieval subject. It

7475-409: The effect of the Black Death on art, mentioning the Danse Macabre as she does so: Some plague art contains gruesome imagery that was directly influenced by the mortality of the plague or by the medieval fascination with the macabre and awareness of death that were augmented by the plague. Some plague art documents psychosocial responses to the fear that plague aroused in its victims. Other plague art

7590-438: The end of all earthly things. It is generally agreed upon by scholars that Dance of Death depictions do show realistic dancing based on the quality of gestures seen in artwork and familiarity with steps found in texts. The paintings include body positions that seem to indicate movement, particular gestures, and specific orders and dynamics between the characters, while texts use relevant dance vocabulary. These elements may indicate

7705-405: The events that befall them embodies some moral quality or other abstraction; the author has selected the allegory first, and the details merely flesh it out. The origins of allegory can be traced at least back to Homer in his "quasi-allegorical" use of personifications of, e.g., Terror (Deimos) and Fear (Phobos) at Il. 115 f. The title of "first allegorist", however, is usually awarded to whoever

7820-443: The first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later " Montmartre ", from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis , and many French kings are buried there. Clovis

7935-471: The first printed Totentanz textbook (Anon.: Vierzeiliger oberdeutscher Totentanz , Heidelberger Blockbuch, c.  1455/58 ), Death addresses, for example, the emperor: Emperor, your sword won't help you out Sceptre and crown are worthless here I've taken you by the hand For you must come to my dance At the lower end of the Totentanz , Death calls, for example, the peasant to dance, who answers: I had to work very much and very hard The sweat

8050-414: The first socialist mayor. He was re-elected in March 2008. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic, he introduced the Vélib' , a system which rents bicycles. Bertrand Delanoë also transformed a section of the highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into an urban promenade and park, the Promenade des Berges de la Seine , which he inaugurated in June 2013. In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched

8165-453: The front line at the First Battle of the Marne . The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German long-range guns . In the years after the war, known as Les Années Folles , Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway , Igor Stravinsky , James Joyce , Josephine Baker , Eva Kotchever , Henry Miller , Anaïs Nin , Sidney Bechet and Salvador Dalí . In

8280-432: The grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer . The effect is both frivolous and terrifying, beseeching its audience to react emotionally. It was produced as memento mori , to remind people of the fragility of their lives and the vanity of earthly glory. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme (apart from 14th century Triumph of Death paintings)

8395-616: The highest in the European Union. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2022, Paris was the city with the ninth-highest cost of living in the world. Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Charles de Gaulle Airport , the third-busiest airport in Europe , and Orly Airport . Opened in 1900,

8510-724: The highest ranks of the mediaeval hierarchy (usually pope and emperor) descending to its lowest (beggar, peasant, and child), each mortal's hand is taken by an animated skeleton or cadaver. The famous Totentanz by Bernt Notke in St. Mary's Church, Lübeck (destroyed during the Allied bombing of Lübeck in World War II ), presented the dead dancers as very lively and agile, making the impression that they were actually dancing, whereas their living dancing partners looked clumsy and passive. The apparent class distinction in almost all of these paintings

8625-537: The idea of forced allegoresis, as allegory is often a matter of interpretation and only sometimes of original artistic intention. Like allegorical stories, allegorical poetry has two meanings – a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Some unique specimens of allegory can be found in the following works: Some elaborate and successful specimens of allegory are to be found in the following works, arranged in approximate chronological order: Paris Paris ( French pronunciation: [paʁi] )

8740-475: The idea of gravity by depicting a simple way it was supposedly discovered. It also made the scientific revelation well known by condensing the theory into a short tale. While allegoresis may make discovery of allegory in any work, not every resonant work of modern fiction is allegorical, and some are clearly not intended to be viewed this way. According to Henry Littlefield's 1964 article, L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , may be readily understood as

8855-532: The inevitability of death and urge moral reflection in order to cope with this reality. In his 1998 study on medieval religious practices, historian Francis Rapp wrote that Christians were moved by the sight of the Infant Jesus playing on his mother's knee; their hearts were touched by the Pietà ; and patron saints reassured them by their presence. But, all the while, the danse macabre urged them not to forget

8970-662: The information a fifth-century upper-class male needed to know into an allegory of the wedding of Mercury and Philologia , with the seven liberal arts the young man needed to know as guests. Also, the Neoplatonic philosophy developed a type of allegorical reading of Homer and Plato. Other early allegories are found in the Hebrew Bible , such as the extended metaphor in Psalm 80 of the vine and its impressive spread and growth, representing Israel's conquest and peopling of

9085-481: The innermost three departments around Paris, airports and high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion. The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030. In January 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed attacks across the Paris region. 1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show of solidarity against terrorism and in support of freedom of speech. In November of

9200-622: The late 12th century, Philip Augustus extended the Louvre fortress to defend the city against river invasions from the west, gave the city its first walls between 1190 and 1215, rebuilt its bridges to either side of its central island, and paved its main thoroughfares. In 1190, he transformed Paris's former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become the University of Paris and would draw students from all of Europe. With 200,000 inhabitants in 1328, Paris, then already

9315-505: The likeness of Death than the dead themselves, whence come these simulated effigies and images of Death's affairs, which imprint the memory of Death with more force than all the rhetorical descriptions of the orators ever could."). Holbein's series shows the figure of "Death" in many disguises, confronting individuals from all walks of life. None escape Death's skeletal clutches, not even the pious. As Davis writes, "Holbein's pictures are independent dramas in which Death comes upon his victim in

9430-699: The main attractions […] Both Catholics and Protestants wished, through the pictures, to turn men's thoughts to a Christian preparation for death. ". The 1538 edition which contained Latin quotations from the Bible above Holbein's designs, and a French quatrain below composed by Gilles Corrozet (1510–1568) actually did not credit Holbein as the artist. It bore the title: Les simulachres & / HISTORIEES FACES / DE LA MORT, AUTANT ELE/gammēt pourtraictes, que artifi/ciellement imaginées. / A Lyon. / Soubz l'escu de COLOIGNE. / M.D. XXXVIII. ("Images and Illustrated facets of Death, as elegantly depicted as they are artfully conceived.") These images and workings of death as captured in

9545-491: The midst of the latter's own surroundings and activities. This is perhaps nowhere more strikingly captured than in the wonderful blocks showing the plowman earning his bread by the sweat of his brow only to have his horses speed him to his end by Death. The Latin from the 1549 Italian edition pictured here reads: "In sudore vultus tui, vesceris pane tuo." ("Through the sweat of thy brow you shall eat your bread"), quoting Genesis 3.19. The Italian verses below translate: ("Miserable in

9660-646: The modern city of Paris was first mentioned in the mid-1st century BC by Julius Caesar as Luteciam Parisiorum (' Lutetia of the Parisii ') and is later attested as Parision in the 5th century AD, then as Paris in 1265. During the Roman period, it was commonly known as Lutetia or Lutecia in Latin, and as Leukotekía in Greek, which is interpreted as either stemming from the Celtic root *lukot- ('mouse'), or from * luto- ('marsh, swamp'). The name Paris

9775-523: The moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey. Many allegories use personification of abstract concepts. First attested in English in 1382, the word allegory comes from Latin allegoria , the latinisation of the Greek ἀλληγορία ( allegoría ), "veiled language, figurative", literally "speaking about something else", which in turn comes from ἄλλος ( allos ), "another, different" and ἀγορεύω ( agoreuo ), "to harangue, to speak in

9890-732: The new site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1996), the Arche de la Défense (1985–1989) in La Défense , as well as the Louvre Pyramid with its underground courtyard (1983–1989); Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du quai Branly . In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001, Bertrand Delanoë became

10005-534: The origin of costumes worn during Allhallowtide . Regardless, its main influence has been in the form of visual arts such as murals, paintings, and more. The bubonic plague and its devastating effects on the European population were significantly contributing factors to the inspiration and solidification of the Dance of Death tradition in the fourteenth century. In her thesis, The Black Death and its Effect on 14th and 15th Century Art , Anna Louise Des Ormeaux describes

10120-574: The overwhelming majority) could understand. Frescoes and murals dealing with death had a long tradition, and were widespread. For example, the legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead. On a ride or hunt, three young gentlemen meet three cadavers (sometimes described as their ancestors) who warn them, Quod fuimus, estis; quod sumus, vos eritis ("What we were, you are; what we are, you will be"). Numerous mural versions of that legend from

10235-840: The phrase "histories faces" of the title "are the particular exemplification of the way death works, the individual scenes in which the lessons of mortality are brought home to people of every station." In his preface to the work Jean de Vauzèle, the Prior of Montrosier, addresses Jehanne de Tourzelle, the Abbess of the Convent at St. Peter at Lyons, and names Holbein's attempts to capture the ever-present, but never directly seen, abstract images of death "simulachres." He writes: " […] simulachres les dis ie vrayement, pour ce que simulachre vient de simuler, & faindre ce que n'est point. " ("Simulachres they are most correctly called, for simulachre derives from

10350-403: The presence of past enacted dances and that the depictions were read for a performative function, as hypothesized by Gertsman in her paper “Pleyinge and Peyntynge: Performing the Dance of Death.” This view centers on the incorporation of both visual and theatrical devices in these depictions to create effective artwork. Gertsman writes that By drawing its inspiration from the sphere of performance,

10465-544: The red clay of Roland Garros . Paris hosted the 1900 , the 1924 , and the 2024 Summer Olympics . The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups , the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup , the 2007 Rugby World Cup , as well as the 1960 , 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in Paris. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The ancient oppidum that corresponds to

10580-591: The religious desire for penance , but it also evoked a hysterical desire for amusement while still possible; a last dance as cold comfort. The Danse Macabre combines both desires: in many ways similar to the medieval mystery plays , the dance-with-death allegory was originally a didactic dialogue poem to remind people of the inevitability of death and to advise them strongly to be prepared at all times for death (see memento mori and Ars moriendi ). Short verse dialogues between Death and each of its victims, which could have been performed as plays, can be found in

10695-580: The same year, terrorist attacks , claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350. On 22 April 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an aim to limit the effects of climate change below 2 °C. Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river Seine , whose crest includes two islands,

10810-507: The shadows. He tries to tell the people in the cave of his discovery, but they do not believe him and vehemently resist his efforts to free them so they can see for themselves (516e–518a). This allegory is, on a basic level, about a philosopher who upon finding greater knowledge outside the cave of human understanding, seeks to share it as is his duty, and the foolishness of those who would ignore him because they think themselves educated enough. In Late Antiquity Martianus Capella organized all

10925-461: The sixteenth century perhaps as many as a hundred unauthorized editions and imitations. Ten further designs were added in later editions. The Dance of Death (1523–26) refashions the late-medieval allegory of the Danse Macabre as a reformist satire, and one can see the beginnings of a gradual shift from traditional to reformed Christianity. That shift had many permutations however, and in

11040-706: The south wall of the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris . It was painted in 1424–25 during the regency of John, Duke of Bedford . It features an emphatic inclusion of a dead crowned king at a time when France did not have a crowned king. The mural may well have had a political subtext. However, some have argued that 14th century Triumph of Death paintings such as the fresco by Francesco Traini are also examples of danse macabre. There were also painted schemes in Basel (the earliest dating from c.  1440 );

11155-647: The students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority. The May 1968 events in France resulted in the break-up of the University of Paris into 13 independent campuses. In 1975, the National Assembly changed the status of Paris to that of other French cities and, on 25 March 1977, Jacques Chirac became the first elected mayor of Paris since 1793. The Tour Maine-Montparnasse ,

11270-606: The surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian Army . Following several months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. After seizing power in Paris on 28 March, a revolutionary government known as

11385-580: The sweat of your brow,/ It is necessary that you acquire the bread you need eat,/ But, may it not displease you to come with me,/ If you are desirous of rest."). Or there is the nice balance in composition Holbein achieves between the heavy-laden traveling salesman insisting that he must still go to market while Death tugs at his sleeve to put down his wares once and for all: "Venite ad me, qui onerati estis." ("Come to me, all ye who [labour and] are heavy laden"), quoting Matthew 11.28. The Italian here translates: "Come with me, wretch, who are weighed down / Since I am

11500-463: The tallest building in the city at 57 storeys and 210 m (689 ft) high, was built between 1969 and 1973. It was highly controversial, and it remains the only building in the centre of the city over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the RER (Réseau Express Régional),

11615-421: The thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." Tolkien specifically resented the suggestion that the book's One Ring , which gives overwhelming power to those possessing it, was intended as an allegory of nuclear weapons . He noted that, had that been his intention,

11730-542: The throne Henry IV , after converting to Catholicism to gain entry to the capital, entered the city in 1594 to claim the crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he completed the construction of Paris's first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the Pont Neuf , built a Louvre extension connecting it to the Tuileries Palace , and created the first Paris residential square,

11845-676: The verb to simulate and to feign that which is not really there.") He next employs a trope from the memento mori (remember we all must die) tradition and a metaphor from printing which well captures the undertakings of Death, the artist, and the printed book before us in which these simulachres of death barge in on the living: "Et pourtant qu'on n'a peu trouver chose plus approchante a la similitude de Mort, que la personne morte, on d'icelle effigie simulachres, & faces de Mort, pour en nos pensees imprimer la memoire de Mort plus au vis, que ne pourroient toutes les rhetoriques descriptiones de orateurs." ("And yet we cannot discover any one thing more near

11960-555: The walls of Pardon Churchyard at Old St Paul's Cathedral , London, with texts by John Lydgate (1370–1451) known as the 'Dance of (St) Poulys', which was destroyed in 1549. The deathly horrors of the 14th century such as recurring famines , the Hundred Years' War in France, and, most of all, the Black Death , were culturally assimilated throughout Europe. The omnipresent possibility of sudden and painful death increased

12075-495: The world including Pablo Picasso , Modigliani , and Henri Matisse made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism , Cubism and abstract art , and authors such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature. During the First World War , Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to

12190-671: The world that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 8.9   million visitors in 2023, on track for keeping its position as the most-visited art museum in the world. The Musée d'Orsay , Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre , Musée National d'Art Moderne , Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso are noted for their collections of modern and contemporary art . The historical district along

12305-401: The year. Paris is known for intermittent, abrupt, heavy showers. The highest recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F), on 25 July 2019. The lowest was −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F), on 10 December 1879. For almost all of its long history, except for a few brief periods, Paris was governed directly by representatives of the king, emperor, or president of France. In 1974, Paris

12420-423: The years after the peace conference , the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from French colonies and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as Ho Chi Minh , Zhou Enlai and Léopold Sédar Senghor . On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an " open city ". On 16–17 July 1942, following German orders,

12535-469: Was a now-lost mural at Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425. Religion is an important contextual factor around the Dance of Death tradition and its effect on the population, with new eschatology concepts in the fourteenth century being critical for the development of the Dance of Death. Early examples of Dance of Death artwork were present in religious contexts such as murals on Christian church walls. These served to remind people about

12650-737: Was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973. Most of the postwar presidents of the Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977), Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand had the Opéra Bastille built (1985–1989),

12765-525: Was filled in from around the 10th century, Paris's cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's Les Halles ) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité and Place de Grève (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville) . The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years), Paris's first municipal government. In

12880-618: Was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc to liberate the city, it would remain under English occupation until 1436. In the late 16th-century French Wars of Religion , Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic League , the organisers of 24 August 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which thousands of French Protestants were killed. The conflicts ended when pretender to

12995-556: Was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum , "Lutetia of the Parisii", modern French Lutèce ). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre . By the end of the Western Roman Empire , the town was known as Parisius , a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis ,

13110-648: Was running down my skin I'd like to escape death nonetheless But here I won't have any luck Various examples of Danse Macabre in Slovenia and Croatia below: Renowned for his Dance of Death series, the famous designs by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) were drawn in 1526 while he was in Basel . They were cut in wood by the accomplished Formschneider (block cutter) Hans Lützelburger . William Ivins (quoting W. J. Linton) writes of Lützelburger's work wrote: " ' Nothing indeed, by knife or by graver,

13225-416: Was the earliest to put forth allegorical interpretations of Homer. This approach leads to two possible answers: Theagenes of Rhegium (whom Porphyry calls the "first allegorist," Porph. Quaest. Hom. 1.240.14–241.12 Schrad.) or Pherecydes of Syros, both of whom are presumed to be active in the 6th century B.C.E., though Pherecydes is earlier and as he is often presumed to be the first writer of prose. The debate

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