The Spreuer Bridge is the older and quieter of Lucerne's two surviving medieval covered bridges. It dates from around 1408 and takes its name from the chaff (Spreuer) that millers were permitted to dump in the river at this point. While the Kapellbrücke gets the tourist crowds, the Spreuer Bridge is worth crossing for the extraordinary Dance of Death paintings alone.
The 67 triangular panels, painted between 1625 and 1635 by Caspar Meglinger, form one of the most complete Dance of Death cycles to survive anywhere in Europe. The imagery is vivid and unsettling — every rank of society, from pope to beggar, is shown being claimed by a grinning skeleton. The panels were intended as a meditation on mortality during a period when plague visited Lucerne repeatedly. They have lost none of their power.