Master of the Triumph of Death

Another work to be discussed at this point, even if its author may not be Sienese, is the panoramic series of frescoes on the theme of the Last Judgment and the Triumph of Death in the Camposanto in Pisa. The enclosed cemetery next to Pisa Cathedral is known as the Camposanto (holy field) because it contained earth brought from the Holy Land. The walls of the inner courtyard were once frescoed with vast panoramas from the Old and New Testament, the lives of saints, and sacred history, most of which were lost when an incendiary bomb burned the roof during World War II. One fortunate survivor was the cycle of the Master of the Triumph of Death.

The Three Living and the Three Dead are found at the far left. While hunting, three splendidly dressed noblemen, accompanied by friends and attendants, come upon three open coffins, each occupied by a corpse; one is still bloated, the next half-rotted, the third reduced to a skeleton. Worms and serpents play over all three. One of the noblemen holds his nose at the stench, while horses and hunting dogs draw back in disgust. No obscure text is needed to explain the meaning of this scene, while its placement in a cemetery adds to its immediate impact. The same point is made again where the young men and women sit in a garden playing music and caressing pets and each other, oblivious to the approach of Death, a terrifying white-haired hag who flies toward them on bat wings brandishing the huge scythe with which she will cut them down.

In the center of this left section is a heap of Death’s most recent victims, all of whom are richly dressed, while above them demons carry off their souls or angels protect them. The soul of one monk is in dispute, for it is being pulled in opposite directions by an angel and a demon. Perhaps the most poignant detail is the pathetic band of cripples next to the pile of corpses, who hold a scroll on which they beg Death to take them instead of the pleasure-seekers to the right. The possibility of escape from Death is offered in the scene above the coffins, where hermits read, work, and contemplate, fed by milk furnished by a neighboring doe.^[1]

A preoccupation with death was characteristic of medieval people, especially during the mid-fourteenth century when populations throughout Europe were decimated by the Black Plague.