# "Receiving" the last breath of a dying person - common practice?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 9, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319 "2010-01-09T20:15:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319/1 "2010-01-09T20:15:29Z")

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[This painting](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Francois_I_recoit_les_derniers_soupirs_de_Leonard_de_Vinci_by_Ingres.jpg) is labeled as “Francis I receiving the last breath of Leonardo da Vinci.” During his final years, Leonardo lived in France where he was under the patronage of King Francis. I don’t know if the king was actually at Leonardo’s bedside when he died, or not. If he was, and this painting is depicting something that actually happened, then I can only assume he literally hovered over Leonardo as he lay dying, and breathed in the air exhaled by his final breath before he passed - to try to absorb his “essence” or something? It seems sort of occult, actually.

What was the deal with this? Was this a common thing to do with people who were dying, back then? Was it a religious ceremony of some kind? I’m having trouble finding any information about the practice.

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**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319/2 "2010-01-10T00:08:38Z")

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This was painted in 1818, so an extra question would be how far this cheesy Romanticist painting is from what would have been practiced in 16th-c France and Italy, and what Ingres is trying to project onto the 19th-century fantasy view of the Renaissance.

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319/3 "2010-01-10T00:14:09Z")

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Don’t have to go back near that far. Edison’s last breath:

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/873/is-thomas-edisons-last-breath-preserved-in-a-test-tube-in-the-henry-ford-museum](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/873/is-thomas-edisons-last-breath-preserved-in-a-test-tube-in-the-henry-ford-museum)

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**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/receiving-the-last-breath-of-a-dying-person-common-practice/524319/4 "2010-01-10T04:55:04Z")

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If I were da Vinci, I’d say, “Geez, I’m dying here, would you get this froofy king off my lap already?”