Francesco Traini was an Italian painter who was demonstrably active from 1321 to approx. 1365 in Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

 and Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

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He appears to have been a follower of Andrea Orcagna

Andrea Orcagna

Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo , better known as Orcagna, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect active in Florence. A student of Andrea Pisano as well as Giotto di Bondone, his younger brothers Jacopo di Cione and Nardo di Cione were also artists...

. There is only one work known to be by Traini: in 1345 he signed and dated a polyptych

Polyptych

A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...

 of the Pisan church S. Caterina, showing Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic , also known as Dominic of Osma, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán was the founder of the Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans or Order of Preachers , a Catholic religious order...

 and eight hagiographic scenes (now in the Museo Nazionale, Pisa). Most scholars attribute many of the huge fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es of the Camposanto

Camposanto

Camposanto is a comune in the Province of Modena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 35 km northwest of Bologna and about 20 km northeast of Modena on the Panaro river. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 3,061 and an area of 22.7 km²...

 Monumentale in Pisa to Traini, including the Last Judgement, Inferno, Legends of the Hermits and, the famous Il Trionfo della Morte (the Triumph of Death). Other scholars attribute this last work to Buonamico Buffalmacco

Buonamico Buffalmacco

Buonamico di [son of] Martino or Buonamico Buffalmacco was an Italian painter who worked in Florence, Bologna and Pisa...

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The Trionfo della Morte (after 1350) is considered one of the finest and most powerful artworks of the Trecento

Trecento

The Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...

 as it displays the merciless omnipresence of death. It represents- like the earliest examples of Totentanz paintings which were contemporary in Germany - as a reaction to the horrors of the black death

Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

 in the late 1340s.

American historian Barbara Tuchman

Barbara Tuchman

Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian and author. She became known for her best-selling book The Guns of August, a history of the prelude to and first month of World War I, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1963....

 examined the Traini fresco and described it thus: "A scroll warns that 'no shield of wisdom or riches, nobility or prowess' can protect them from the blows of the Approaching One. "They have taken more pleasure in the world than in things of God." In a heap of corpses nearby lie crowned rulers, a Pope in tiara, a knight, tumbled together with the bodies of the poor, while angels and devils in the sky contend for the miniature naked figures that represent their souls."

The frescoes of the Camposanto were unfortunately either severely damaged or destroyed by Allied air raids in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

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External links

• The Triumph of Death Page about historian Barbara Tuchman's analysis of the Traini fresco