Thank you Nicky, Alta and Debra!
The Death card comes from a 1562
emblem by Giovio.
The motto on the emblem says "Mors sceptra ligonibus aequans", i.e. "Death makes the sceptre the same as the hoe". Givio's emblems are very nice, but not many of them fit well in a tarot deck, and usually there is the probelm of changing the format from "landscape" to "portrait". In this case it was quite easy