Il Morbetto

What it is

This is an engraving called Il Morbetto, made by Marcantonio Raimondi in 1515 or 1516. It shows plague scenes in black and white: a man tends a fire near dead cattle and bodies, a bust sits on a tall pillar with an inscription, and people lie sick or dying in the foreground beside a town.

Why it matters

The Black Death struck Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. Raimondi made this print more than 150 years later, so it shows how Renaissance artists imagined the plague long after it had passed. It is not an eyewitness record. It tells us what the pandemic meant to people of the early 1500s, who remembered it through images like this one.

Look closer

• What do the dead cattle and bodies in the scene suggest about how the plague spread?
• Why might the artist place a bust with an inscription on a tall pillar?
• What does the print leave out, such as the faces of the dying or the people who cared for them?