The origins of the theme of the fresco cycle started in the 1330s, where the Black plague occurred when fleas in the stomach of rats had infected Europe's food resulting twenty five million people died because of being infected by the contaminate animals. According to Penelope J.E Davies's Janson's History of Art, "In a particularly dramatic detail (fig. 13.30), the elegantly costumed men and women on horseback have suddenly come upon three decaying corpses in open coffins. Even the animals are terrified by the sight and smell of rotting flesh. The text exemplifies how the fresco portrayed one of the most devastated events in history where it started with inhaling dead human fumes. The frescoes illustrated the death will come to anyone no
