Traditionally, the Middle Ages began in 476 AD, after the fall of the Roman Empire, and ended around 1400 AD. It represents almost a thousand years of continuous political, social, and religious change, including a schism in the Christian faith between Catholic and Orthodox, the crusades with the development of organized military orders, feudalism and the medieval model of government in which people had access to land and worked in return for that access, and the construction of castles used by rulers to demonstrate their wealth and power with the help of knights, soldiers raised to a new high-ranking military status.

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   Enrico Scrovegni was a rich man who practised usury in Padua. In fact, he was more of a usurer than an art lover. He commissioned the painting of the chapel in order to be absolved from his sins, a common practice at the time. Wealthy sinners could buy their place in heaven with the complicity of wealthy and just as sinful clergy. Therefore, in his “Divine Comedy: Inferno,” Dante placed him in hell.

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1. Campiglia Marittima, Italy

   Laura Pesce

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Correspondence toLaura Pesce.

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