14th century
The Black Death kills a third of Europe. Dante already knew
What happened — and why
The Black Death (1347-1351)
The plague kills between 30 and 60% of Europe's population. The Church cannot explain it, and loses its authority.
The philosophical cause
Dante — Dante wrote "The Divine Comedy" before the plague, yet he already sensed it: the world is fractured, the old order is crumbling.
A crisis of church authority leads, a century later, to the Reformation. A crisis of meaning leads, two centuries later, to the Renaissance.
