PLAGUE & A WORLD IN CRISIS
This fourteenth-century pandemic devastated Europe, Asia, and North Africa and killed millions.
What was the Black Death?
This long conflict between England and France lasted from 1337 to 1453.
What was the Hundred Years’ War?
During this period from 1309 to 1377, the popes resided in France rather than Rome.
What was the Avignon Papacy?
This artist sculpted David and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Who was Michelangelo?
This Ottoman sultan conquered Constantinople in 1453 and earned the title “the Conqueror.”
Who was Mehmed II?
This common form of plague caused the painful swollen lymph nodes known as buboes.
What was bubonic plague?
This English weapon devastated heavily armored French forces through rapid, long-range missile fire.
What was the longbow?
This crisis saw rival popes simultaneously claiming to be the true leader of the Catholic Church.
What was the Great Western Schism?
This painter created The School of Athens, filling a Renaissance architectural setting with ancient Greek philosophers.
Who was Raphael?
This enormously wealthy ruler of Mali became famous for his lavish 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca.
Who was Mansa Musa?
These religious groups publicly whipped themselves in acts of penance during the Black Death.
Who were the Flagellants?
At this 1346 battle, English longbowmen helped defeat a much larger French army and demonstrated the decline of traditional knightly warfare.
What was the Battle of Crécy?
This Renaissance master’s technique known as sfumato created subtle, smoky transitions between light and shadow in works such as the Mona Lisa.
Who was Leonardo da Vinci?
This Florentine painter created mythological masterpieces including The Birth of Venus and Primavera.
Who was Sandro Botticelli?
This West African city became renowned for trade, libraries, Islamic scholarship, and institutions such as the Sankore Madrasah. It has become synonymous with a remote location in recent decades.
What is Timbuktu?
This isolation practice grew from plague-era efforts in Italian port cities and takes its name from an Italian word meaning “forty.”
What is quarantine?
This French teenager helped lift the Siege of Orléans in 1429 and transformed French morale before later being captured and executed.
Who was Joan of Arc?
This Florentine architect pioneered experiments with linear perspective and engineered the massive dome of Florence Cathedral.
Who was Filippo Brunelleschi?
Michelangelo’s David was not simply a biblical sculpture; in Florence it also became a symbol of this political ideal of independent civic government.
What is republicanism—or republican liberty?
During the siege of Constantinople, Mehmed II bypassed a chain blocking the Golden Horn by ordering Ottoman ships moved this way.
What is hauling the ships overland on greased wooden tracks?
In this famous literary work, a group of young Florentines escape the plague by retreating to the countryside and telling one another stories.
What is The Decameron?
This French term described devastating mounted raids intended to burn crops, destroy villages, cripple enemy resources, and terrorize civilians.
What was a chevauchée?
This Church council ended the Great Western Schism in the early fifteenth century.
What was the Council of Constance?
This Northern Renaissance masterpiece by Jan van Eyck includes a tiny convex mirror in the background whose reflection shows additional figures entering the room, demonstrating the artist’s extraordinary attention to detail.
What is The Arnolfini Portrait?
This Portuguese explorer reached India by sailing around Africa, opening a direct European sea route into the Indian Ocean trade network.
Who was Vasco da Gama?