The Artistic Developments Of The Early Renaissance Period

During the Plague, having death as a constant part of life led to serious social changes in art, religion and relationships. During the time of the plague, art began to incorporate death in almost every form: paintings, music, and literature. Whole communities of scholars were hit by the plague and schools were shut down.

Through the years of 1347 and 1350, a terrible plague took over Europe. In those three years, the plague killed approximately 25 million people or one-third of Europe’s population. Not one family did not lose a family member to the plague. About one hundred people died daily, and mostly of them were never buried in a proper manner. Their bodies scattered the street of the city unclaimed. This plague was the Black Death, the most deadly natural disaster in the history of Europe. The loss of life was tremendous, and the damage was immense. Across Europe, the Black Death appeared and disrupted people daily routine. The Black Death shattered the people of the Middle Ages ways of life. It demolished the economy and as well of traditional beliefs. There was no returning to the ways of Middle Age life that has been for the past five hundred years. The Black Death brought an end to the Middle Ages.

The word “plague” is defined as a contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, typically with the formation of buboes, and sometimes infection of the lungs. The article entitled, “On the Progress of the Black Death”, written by Jean de Venette, a French Carmelite friar who was a leading clergyman around Paris at the time of the Black Death, is a well-known account of the spread of the plague in Northern Europe. In this account, Jean de Venette explained the history of the plague, its causes and its consequences.

Sometimes the missteps of the medical community went so far as to cause inadvertent harm. Jacme D’agramont, physician and professor, writes in his “Regiment de preservacio a epidimia o pestiliencia e mortaldats” of the dangers of bathing because it opens one’s pores and “through these pores corrupt air enters and has a powerful influence upon our body and on our humors.” (Aberth, 1186). The entire period was wrought with novelty cures and hypotheses about overcoming the plague, and so often these approaches failed that eventually the people would find solace wherever they could. Even art had a voice in coping with the Black Death. Much of the art was not only therapeutic for the artists and those who enjoyed them but they serve as an insight into the shared setiments of the time. These pieces understandably emphasize death and its inevitability as a primary theme. While the real victor over the plague turned out to be time, this perspective on conflict serves as a testament to the long-suffering determination of humanity to survive and thrive.

As was we all know that The Black Death is one of the tragic events in world history and it has effected many civilizations in early 1300s. This has made many devastating trends within Europe’s borders and raged with many diseases, and other infections. Not only this pandemic event has effected many people, but it has transform Europe’ political, religious, and cultural practices. The Black Death became an outbreak and painful change to western civilization in which it marked history

Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Harper Collins First Perennial edition, 2001) examines how the bubonic plague, or Black Death, affected Europe in the fourteenth century. Cantor recounts specific events in the time leading up to the plague, during the plague, and in the aftermath of the plague. He wrote the book to relate the experiences of victims and survivors and to illustrate the impact that the plague had on the government, families, religion, the social structure, and art.

What is the significance of Black Death to the Italy, Russia and the entire Europe? This gravely illness had great impacts. In fact, the gruesome signs and deadliness, have over time fixed the Black Death in very extraordinary imagination among many people. Over decades scholars has discovered various impacts of the disease on the economy, social and cultural lives of the natives of the affected areas. It is clear that the Black Death is important to the Europeans because it changed their economy to better. This essay analyzes the Black Death and also illustrated the significance of the plague.

After Edward III died in 1377, England experience domestic issues during the reign of Richard II

The Black Death was one of the largest epidemics the world had ever seen, having wiped out mass amounts of people the plague came to completely shift European medieval society into the modern era. The black death showed no regard as to who it affected, it affected rich and poor, man, women and children all the same. The plague was so widespread among Europe that death was increasingly frequent. Such an epidemic caused people to have a completely new idea of life and death. In this essay I intend to argue that the key components of medieval society’s outlook on life and death are how death affected the living, through the ways people coped the mass amounts of loss. The various interpretations of the cause were a way for society to

The Europeans’ response to the Black Death were extremely varied in many aspects: social, economic, religious, artistic and medical. Two moments need to be analyzed when talking about the people’s response to something, the during and the after. At the very beginning of this chaos, when the plague was just starting to hit Europe, the response was very “medieval”. However, after some time suffering from this horrendous disease, and after it slowed down, Europeans started to view things differently, responding with characteristics of a “Renaissance” outlook. This episode in history served as a rebirth of culture and society.

The Bubonic Plague took the lives of many individuals in the heart of Florence. Its reign affected “not just that of men and women…but even sentient animals” (Stefani). While the plague only lasted a mere six months, from March 1348 – September 1348, it is a piece of time that society should forever acknowledge and learn from. Much of the significant information from the Bubonic plague are unbeknownst to people today, even though it possesses such an importance aspect in our history. Therefore, in this essay, I will discuss the effects the plague had on the people of Florence, and how the appearance of this plague brought about short and long term historical change what we see today.

In The Decameron by Boccaccio, the quote, “One citizen avoided another, hardly any neighbor troubled about others, relatives never or hardly ever visited each other. Moreover, such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband. What is even worse and nearly incredible is that fathers and mothers refused to see and tend their children, as if they had not been theirs.” states how the people would avoid the sick for their own safety. If someone had the plague, they would be ostracized and be left to their own devices, even if they were deathly sick. The fear of death was so strong that even parents would abandon their children, and children would abandon their parents, just for the hope that they wouldn’t get sick. Also, In the quote “In this suffering and misery of our city, the authority of human and divine laws almost disappeared, for, like other men, the ministers and the executors of the laws were all dead or sick or shut up with their families, so that no duties were carried out. Every man was therefore able to do as he pleased.” shows how so many people died, that the ones who lived would be able to disobey the law. People would go into others homes uninvited and stay there for the night and take items from the

According to Robert S. Gottfried, author of the book The Black Plague: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe, the Black Plague had a huge impact on human behavior and psychology, “the mechanics and commonplaces of everyday life simply stopped, at least initially “(77-78). With the devastation of the plague, “peasants no longer ploughed, merchants closed their shops, and some, if not all, churchmen stopped offering last rites” (Gottfried 78). In his book The Decameron, Boccaccio described many of the responses of the people during this time:

The Renaissance time period was home to many new ideas in art. This includes new artists bringing forth ideas that had yet to be discovered and made popular. New themes and types of art were also being brought forward during this period.

Beginning with the Renaissance (1400-1600) we see a change in the subject matter being portrayed by artists of the time. We can attribute this change not only to the change in patrons, from the Christian church to wealthy bankers and politicians, but also to the growing body of scientific knowledge. “The Renaissance was