The Pope (from The Dance of Death)

This woodcut depicts an ornate papal throne scene. The Pope, dressed in full liturgical vestments and a tiara, occupies the throne while holding a crown in his hands; a skeleton draped in a shroud looms directly behind him. At the Pope's feet, an emperor kneels, his back to the viewer, leaning forward to kiss the Pope's foot, with a globe lying on the floor nearby. Beside the throne stand two bishops or cardinals, one of whom is accompanied by another skeletal figure of Death holding a processional cross. Two small, grotesque horned demons are perched atop the canopy above the Pope's head.

This work is a quintessential example of the 'Danse Macabre' (Dance of Death) tradition, a late medieval and Renaissance motif emphasizing the universality of death and the vanity of earthly power. It critiques ecclesiastical and imperial authority by depicting the most powerful figures of Christendom as being in the immediate presence of their own mortality.