Buonamico Buffalmacco

Painted some ten years before the Black Death spread over medieval Europe in 1348, the cycle enjoyed an extraordinary success after that date, and was often imitated throughout Italy during the Renaissance.

Throughout the stories, Buonamico is frequently depicted at work painting in the houses of notable gentlemen in Florence but eager to take time to eat, drink, and be merry.

Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari included a biography of Buonamico Buffalmacco in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550–1568), in which he tells several anecdotes about his comic escapades.

[citation needed] In the Trionfo della Morte ("Triumph of Death"), a group of leisurely young aristocrats and their animals occupy the central part of the fresco.

[1] These rich young men and women riding horses, surrounded by their decorative hunting dogs, have gone on a pleasant journey.

17th-century engraving of Buffalmacco by Wenceslaus Hollar
From left to right: L'incontro dei tre vivi e dei tre morti ("The Three Dead and the Three Living") [ 1 ] and Trionfo della Morte ("Triumph of Death"). [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The latter fresco was painted between c. 1330s–1350 (disputed); [ 2 ] both are currently preserved in the Campo Santo of Pisa . [ 3 ]
Detail of Trionfo della Morte ("Triumph of Death"): three stylish young aristocrats mounted on fine horses encounter three coffin-encased corpses in differing stages of decomposition . [ 1 ]