Chapter 1. Ovdal go buot/In the Beginning.

Cultural Explanations

Click here to return to Chapter 1

St. Sebastian, Pisa, Buonamico Buffalmacco

This chapter presents the fundamental conundrum of the novel: how an image of a man milking a reindeer got into a fourteenth-century Italian fresco. All the chapters which follow seek to answer this single question.

 

 
       

The brief history supplied in this chapter is entirely accurate, as far as I can tell. You can read more about Pisa and its history on its Wikipedia site by clicking HERE. The militant archbishop of Pisa who eventually became the Patriarch of Jerusalem was Dagobert, who was named archbishop of Pisa in 1085, and archbishop of Sardinia and Corsica in 1092. The Pisan pope was Blessed Eugene III, who served as pontiff from 1143-1153. Prior to his papal life he was known as Bernardo da Pisa, but may have belonged to the prominent Pisan family the Paganelli di Montemagno. Sometime in the 1130s, he was ordained by Pope Innocent II, who happened to be living in Pisa at the time. A Cistercian monk, Bernardo/Eugene commissioned his teacher and mentor St. Bernard of Clairvaux to preach the Second Crusade. The antipope referred to in the chapter is Nicholas V, who served as purported pope from 1328-1330. Much later, there would be a second antipope at Pisa, Antipope John XXIII, who served from 1410-1419.

The archbishop who brought the holy soil of Golgotha to Pisa was Ubaldo Lanfranchi (1108-78). If you read Italian, there is a good short biography of him on the Italian Wikipedia: click HERE to read. The sacred soil of Golgotha served as the resting ground of many of Pisa's finest families before the actual construction of the building which now surrounds it. This edifice was designed and erected in 1278. You can see images and read more about the Camposanto at the Sacred Destinations website. There is also a nice Wikipedia page HERE. Camposanto is also a UNESCO World Heritage site and has a write-up at the link HERE.

 

  
     
The frescoes of the Camposanto were completed in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Art historians have long puzzled about the painter who created The Triumph of Death, and many scholars simply refer to him as the "Master of the Triumph of Death." Later in the novel you will meet the painter Buonamico Buffalmacco, who is now often credited with the masterpiece. You can see a complete image of the grand fresco The Triumph of Death by clicking on the image below. The detail image of the monk milking the reindeer used on this website is courtesy Prof. Seymour Mauskopf of Duke University.