The Black Death and the International Style ....................................

Lecture 10

The tragic outbreak of the Bubonic Plague affected not only Siena, of

course. This was a pandemic that swept Europe and parts of Asia, and,

in 20 years, it killed as much as three-quarters of the population.

P

icking up from our last lecture, we discuss how the bubonic plague of
the mid-14th century affected art as a whole. In this same vein, we also
compare artistic renditions of the same subject from works before and
after the plague. The Black Death affected not only Siena but swept through
Europe and parts of Asia and killed three-quarters of the population in 20
years. When the plague exploded in Italy, Siena and Florence were already
vulnerable from two years of severe agricultural and economic losses. In
Florence, 45,000 out of 90,000 inhabitants died in the summer of 1348. In
Siena, 27,000 out of a population of 42,000 perished. As a result, the plague
radically changed the course of society and art.

In the cloistered burial ground called the Campo Santo in Pisa, a fresco
attributed to Francesco Traini, Triumph of Death, summed up the prevailing
pessimism. Our example shows an aerial view of Pisa’s Campo Santo. The
Triumph of Death is a panorama reminiscent of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s
panorama of good government in the city and country. Some scholars
attribute this work to an anonymous “Master of the Triumph of Death,”
and others think it was completed before the plague of 1348. Although
Traini was a minor Pisan artist, the plague may have eliminated much of
the competition for this commission. The right side of this fresco recalls
Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, with aristocratic young people making
music, conversing, and playing with pets. The painter reminds us that those
in the prime of youth are still subject to the same fate as all mankind. Note
the À ying woman with long white hair and a scythe swooping down on the
party from the left, a personi¿ cation of Death. Above the group, angels vie
with demons for the souls of the dead.

The left side of the fresco shows a group of horsemen encountering three
cof¿ ns—those of a wealthy man, a clergyman, and a king. The Humanistic art