transi

Transi is a term used in art history to describe a category of funerary sculpture that presents the deceased as a cadaver to emphasize mortality. The word transi derives from French and Latin roots related to passing away or fading. In late medieval and early modern Europe, roughly from the 14th to the 16th century, transi monuments—also called cadaver tombs—were erected in churches and chapels as stark reminders of the transience of earthly life.

Typical transi tomb designs juxtapose a commemorative or ancestral portrait of the deceased with a sculpted representation of death. The corpse figure is often shown in a state of decay or as a skeletal form, sometimes with exposed bones, sometimes enclosed in a recess or embedded beneath the tomb chest. The figures are usually carved from stone such as marble or alabaster and may be painted or gilded to heighten realism. In some configurations, a living donor figure or an inscription accompanies the cadaver image, reinforcing didactic messages about penance, humility, and the afterlife.

Transi monuments were especially common in France and the Low Countries, though they appear in Italy and German-speaking regions as well. They served both commemorative and instructive purposes, aiming to remind viewers that wealth and status cannot avert death and that judgment awaits after life ends.

The popularity of the transi declined after the 16th century as artistic tastes and theological emphases shifted. Today, transi sculptures are valued for their material presence and as sources for understanding medieval and early modern attitudes toward death, memory, and memento mori.