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(205) The Seventh Seal:

Edition of 826 of which 125 copies are signed 1-125, 26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, three sets are signed as progressives and 12 are signed as dedication copies.

December 7, 2004

8 colors Paper: Mohawk Superfine 80# Cover

Model: Mina Reimer

Influence: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) woodcut

Client: Self-promotion

1-125: Saint Hieronymus Press, Inc.
A-Z: Artist's own use
Dedication copies: Mina Reimer
Progressives: One set to Mina Reimer, two sets to Saint Hieronymus Press


"Wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain."

- Anonymous inscription carved at
Saint Mary's, Ashwell, Hertfordshire, 1349

Francesco Petrarch (1304 - 1374)
  Laura de Noves (1310 - 1348), Petrarch's ideal love, died of the Plague
Giovanni, Petrarch's son, died in 1361 of the Plague
Francesco, Petrarch's grandson, died in 1369 of the Plague
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375)
  The Decameron consists of one-hundred stories told over ten days by ten people escaping from the Plague.
Boccaccino di Chellino, Giovanni's father, died in 1349 of the Plague
Bice del Bostichi, Giovanni Boccaccio's step-mother, died in 1348 of the Plague
Maria de Conti d'Aquino, "Fiammetta," (1315? - 1350?), Giovanni Boccaccio's ideal love, thought to have died of the Plague

The Plague took three forms: bubonic, with a 30% to 75% mortality, death occurring within a week; pneumonic, with a 90% to 95% mortality, death occurring within a few days; and septicemic, with a 100% mortality, death occurring within hours.

Of course, people were frightened witless. The Angel of Death had spread her wings over Europe and a third of the population was dead, dying or about to die, and nobody had the faintest idea what was causing it or what to do except flee, thereby doing Death's work for her. Some responded with an excess of religious fervor; some responded with an excess of carnal indulgence; some gloomily accepted that even if Death stalked the land, a man still had to eat, and in order to eat he still had to plant and harvest. The world was turned upside-down. But life went on, willy-nilly, as it must, and out of the ashes of the Middle Ages arose a phoenix, a re-birth: the Renaissance.