Death is not represented dancing, and charming the livings but brutally contemplating its hord of victims. The slaughter has been done or the Reaper is putting a final touch.

The Triumph of Death Gallery

According to Ariès,  Death as "the common tyrant," and triumphing conqueror, was "a symbol of blind fate”, very different, apparently, from the individualism of the dances of death. Whereas Germany and France preferred the dance of Death, Italy liked that genre better.

One of the most famous is the "Triumph of Death" in the cemetery of Pisa, painted between 1450 and 1500. Alessandro Triani’s Triumph of Death (Trionfo della Morte) is another masterpiece of the Sienese period. Painted in 1350, The Triumph of Death depicts rich nobles out for a picnic in the countryside, unaware that the plague (in the shape of a grotesque hag) is ready to strike.

In Florence (1559) the "triumph of death" formed a part of the carnival celebration. We may describe it as follows: After dark a huge wagon, draped in black and drawn by oxen, drove through the streets of the city. At the end of the shaft was seen the Angel of Death blowing the trumpet.

On the top of the wagon stood a great figure of Death carrying a scythe and surrounded by coffins. Around the wagons were covered graves which opened whenever the procession halted. Men dressed in black garments on which were painted skulls and bones came forth and, seated on the edge of the graves, sang dirges on the shortness of human life. Before and behind the wagon appeared men in black and white bearing torches and death masks, followed by banners displaying skulls and bones and skeletons riding on scrawny nags. While they marched the entire company sang the Miserere with trembling voices.