At that moment, the ground opened; Hades came out of the underworld and abducted Persephone. The story and its recurrence in the canon of history presents itself as a symbol of the universality of death. No matter who we are, or where we are, death is always waiting, lurking perhaps, ready to achieve its goal. We are warned of life’s brevity, and of the dangers of vanity and self-idolisation.This old vision took a new form at the end of the 15th century, becoming the allegory of ‘Death and the Maiden’. The female body, the height of all innocence, beauty and intrigue would also eventually perish to be merely a skeleton.In this period the innocent, coerced by death, begins to be depicted locked in a loving embrace, enraptured by a gaze or trembling with fear in the presence of the personification of death.