Devil, Death and Alchemy: European Imagination in Late Medieval Painting

The European Middle Ages are often regarded as a cultural gap between the grandeur of the Ancient World and the revolutionary changes of Modern history. Yet the Medieval Times are the core of our modern personality as inhabitants of the Old Continent. The devil, death and alchemy have always been interconnected as alternatives of our historical imagination in a composition of European thought that touches all layers of society. Art is the gateway towards imagination, as it can narrate it by decrypting the influence historical events had over the populace. The pages of this book will take the reader on a journey from the historical insight of the devil, death and alchemy, towards the complicated and ever evolving imagination as reflected by Late Medieval painting and alchemical illuminations.