Allegory of the Triumph of Death over Church and State 1533 - 1549

"Allegory of the Triumph of Death over Church and State," a 16th-century drawing by Girolamo da Treviso, depicts a skeletal figure representing Death, dominating a scene of destruction and chaos. The work is a powerful allegory exploring the fleeting nature of life, and the inevitability of death, over the institutions of Church and State, as represented by the figures in the foreground. This haunting image, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, evokes a sense of mortality and the fragility of human power.