The phrase Memento Mori is Latin for "Remember, you will die." It's a philosophical discipline of the Stoics of classic antiquity that invoked daily reminders of our mortality. A common motif of Memento Mori is the skull and bones that appeared in several churches of Medieval Europe as a way to remind people to live in a way that passes judgement at the moment of Death. 

The Danse Macabre (Dance of the Dead) is one of the more famous series of Memento Mori motifs. The series featured Latin phrases with a personification of Death's (simulacrum) inconvenient interruption of life with no regard to schedules or class. 

The images in our Memento Mori notecard collection feature the most famous reproduction of the Danse Macabre in Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, 1538. The book presented woodcuts by Hans Holbein with John Lydgate's 1430 translation of the Danse Macabre. 

These images have been republished over centuries and are newly remastered here by Christian Grantham with sourcing from Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.