Italian “Danses macabres” and theatre of memory

Abstract

The increasing importance of the role played by the Confraternities, in a historical period which dates from the end of the fourteenth century to the whole of the sixteenth century, comprises the widespread practice of itinerant preaching, and the development of a heritage of signs and symbols which derives from a common European repertory. All this appears very clearly in the configuration of the message transmitted by the “Danse Macabre” which from a purely graphic representation is transformed into a performance with theatrical connotations.