Loggia of the Piazza del Campo, Siena

What it is

This is a small loggia, or open-sided structure, at the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy. The Wellcome Collection's record says it commemorates the plague, the Black Death of 1348, which carried off 30,000 people. It was completed in 1376. The photograph in the archive is a black-and-white view of the square, showing the Torre del Mangia and the Palazzo Pubblico, with a handwritten caption below that lists dates and mentions the 1348 plague.

Why it matters

Communities sometimes built monuments to remember disasters that had killed many of their people. This loggia was built nearly thirty years after the plague, so it shows how Siena chose to remember the Black Death in public space. It is a later memorial, not a record made by someone who lived through the plague.

Look closer

• What details in the photograph show the setting, and how does the small loggia sit within the larger square?
• Why might a city build a memorial decades after a disaster?
• What does a building like this leave out about the people who died?