ABSTRACT
Bernardino of Siena in his sermon to the aged said: ‘If the ripe apple could reason and speak, it would offer thanks for having achieved the purpose of its creation,’1-that is to say, for having reached ripeness and fallen from the tree. So, too, must the old person accept his old age and confront his imminent death. Writers never tired of pointing out the naturalness and justice of the death of old people (as opposed to the dying of the young) in terms of the laws of nature, as well as in theological, moral and social contexts. This being a natural death, the ‘art of dying’ (ars moriendi), which evolved from the second half of the fourteenth century, scarcely referred to the aged. In the Dance of Death, both in the plastic arts and in writing, where Death is shown dragging away members of all the social strata, all the professions, both sexes and different ages, old people were hardly ever included. This, despite the emphatic use of oppositions in these depictions: man/woman; nobleman/peasant; layman/bishop and monk. The age contrasts were confined to child/young man, or young man/middle-aged man, where the latter was usually a great lord, one of the mighty of the land at the peak of his power.2 Dragging an old man to his death and tomb would not have illustrated the power of Death, which could strike man at any stage of his life and before whom all were equal.
