This book is titled Besonders meublirt-und gezierte Todten-Capelle, oder Allgemeiner Todten-Spiegel, Darinnen Alle Menschen, wes Standes sie sind, sich beschauen, an denen mannigfaltigen, Sinn reichen Gemahlden das Memento Mori, zu studiren die Nichtigfeit und Eitelfeit dieses Lebens, which means A strangely furnished and decorated Chapel of the Dead, or General Mirror of the Dead, in which All People, whatever their Station, may contemplate themselves in the multitude, rich with meaningful pictures, the Memento Mori, to study the Futility and Vanity of this life. The short title is Todten-Capelle, or the Chapel of the Dead. 
It was written by Abraham a Sancta Clara and first published in 1710, a year after the author’s death, so this is a second edition of this title by Sancta Clara, and it is considered an emblem book about the dance of death.
The Chapel of the Dead is not a physical or real chapel, but a metaphorical one representing a place where people can consider mortality, the judgment of the soul, and the importance of a righteous life. The book explores the inevitability of death and how to face it, the Christian belief in a final judgment and what happens after death, and moral living - how to live a life that pleases God - and memento mori means “remember you must die” in Latin , so it is a moralistic work about death, mortality, and the fleeting nature of life.  
The book was published in 1711 by Christoph Weigel, a copper engraver, art dealer, and publisher in Nurnberg.  (Nürnberg” is the German spelling for “Nuremberg” in Bavaria, Germany.) It has vellum covers, a maroon label on the spine with incised letters for the author and title, blank endpapers with lightly pencilled notes, an engraved double-page half-title with a portrait of Abraham a Sancta Clara, two blank pages, then double pages for the full title, a censorship page in Latin which says the book has been reviewed by the church and approved for publication (“Censura”), followed by a second page in Latin which says the book has been approved for publication by P. Gregorius Pfodenhauer, then an 18-page introduction which praises the life of the author, three more pages of praise for the author, a 13-page index (Register) which contains all the chapter titles in the book as well as the biblical passage they refer to, there are 316 pages of text, then a 19-page index (Register) at the rear which covers the subjects in the book, 68 copperplate engravings that correspond to the 68 chapters in the book plus the double-page engraving in the front with Sancta Clara’s portrait, the text is in German, and each engraving has a Latin quote and a German couplet at the bottom that explains the theological message of the image.    
Abraham a Sancta Clara (1644  - 1709) was a prominent German monk and Augustinian friar who was described as very eccentric, but very popular. Born in Kreenheinstetten, a village in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, he was named John Ulrich Megerle at birth, and after his father died, John was adopted by his uncle Abraham, a church canon who helped the local bishop with administrative or liturgical duties; his uncle sent John to a Benedictine school in Salzburg, and in 1662, John joined the Discalced Augustinians in Vienna, where he went by the name Abraham, probably to honor his uncle, and he added “a Sancta Clara” later on to complete his monastic name. The Discalced Augustinians were a Catholic order, and in time Abraham rose to become definitor and prior of his province. 
(The Order of Discalced Augustinians was a reform movement that branched off from the Order of Saint Augustine. It followed at the model of other mendicant orders, in which simplicity of dress and a stricter form of prayer and penance were embraced. Their fasts were more rigorous, and as with the Carmelite reform of the same period, these friars came to be known for wearing sandals instead of shoes - thus the term discalced or barefoot, in an effort to live more like the poor.)
(A definitor was a council member of a religious order who had the right to vote  on important matters and was responsible for providing candid counsel to the superior of the province, even if it was contrary to the majority, and as a collective body, the "chapter of definitors" helped ensure that the order's operations and ministries aligned with its mission. They held significant power, as the superior of the province could not make major decisions without consulting them, and the body's opinions were vital in shaping the order's constitution and decisions.)
Abraham gained a great reputation for pulpit eloquence and was appointed imperial court preacher to Emperor Leopold I in 1677; Leopold was the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany, Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, so it was an important position for Abraham to hold. People flocked to hear him, attracted by the force and simplicity of his language, his grotesque humor, and the severity with which he lashed out at the follies of all social classes. Many passages in his sermons offered lofty thoughts and dignified language, but he was also noted for his antisemitism, which had an influence on supporters of the Third Reich, including Martin Heidegger.              
Other works by Abraham a Sancta Clara include Judas der Erzschelm (Judas the Arch-scoundrel, 4 volumes, Salzburg, 1686–1695). This is considered perhaps the most notable specimen of his style, a didactic or educational novel that took a decade to complete and explored the apocryphal life of Judas Iscariot with moral applications for daily spiritual life. He also wrote Huy! und Pfuy der Welt (Ho! and Phooey on the World, Würzburg, 1707), which showed the influence of Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) and was a moral treatise using wit and fables to denounce vices.
The book measures 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches wide and is in very good condition. The binding is tight and the pages, text, and engravings are clean, with occasional offset, four engravings are colored (pages 87, 95, 99, and 185), and all the engravings, pages, and text are present. We are not sure if the vellum covers  are the original bindings, but they’re in very good condition, and the book is rare. According to WorldCat, only three copies are in Special collections around the world: at the University of Freiburg, the University of Heidelberg, both in Germany, and one at Aargauer Library in Aarau, Switzerland, but that was a copy from 1729. Four others are named in WorldCat, but aren’t listed in their holdings anymore - one at Thuringer University in Jena, Germany, one in Berlin - it was lost or probably destroyed during the Second World War, according to their records - and two others in Switzerland - one in Bern and the other in Vadiana Canton Library in St. Gallen. We found two more sites in the U.S. where the book can be found - at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and at Yale’s Beineke Library in New Haven, Conn., but those aren’t listed in WorldCat. 
There are not many auction or sales records for the book, either. Ketterer Kunst in Germany sold a copy from 1711 in 2005 for €988 ($1146), Swann Galleries sold a copy from 1711 in 2023 as part of their German Baroque Literature offerings, but we don’t know the sale price, and Invaluable sold a copy on May 23, 2023 (lot 607), and we don’t know the sale price for that lot either, Swann Galleries sold a copy from 1729 in 2005 for $510, but that was a much later edition of Sancta Clara’s book, and one copy from
1711 is selling on eBay for $1800, so the book is definitely rare, and we are starting the bidding low to get things going for this dance of death work from the Baroque period.

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