The characters in the opera The Visitors are escaping the Black Death by sheltering in a villa outside what city
Florence
The Visitors (opera)
The Visitors is an opera in three acts and a prologue composed by Carlos Chávez to an English libretto by the American poet Chester Kallman.
 The work was Chávez's only opera.
 Its first version, with the title "Panfilo and Lauretta", premiered in New York City in 1957.
 The final version with the title "The Visitors" was premiered in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1999, twenty years after the composer's death.
 The story is set in 14th century Tuscany during the time of the Black Death.
 The libretto (like those for "Pagliacci" and "Ariadne auf Naxos") uses the device of a play within a play to reflect and intensify the relationships between the protagonists, who in this case are loosely based on characters in "The Decameron".
The Decameron
The Decameron (Italian: "Decameron" ] or "Decamerone" ] ), subtitled "Prince Galehaut" (Old Italian: "Prencipe Galeotto" ] ), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375).
 The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city.
 Boccaccio probably conceived the "Decameron" after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353.
 The various tales of love in "The Decameron" range from the erotic to the tragic.
 Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic.
 In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"), it provides a document of life at the time.
 Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.
Buonamico Buffalmacco
Buonamico di [son of] Martino or Buonamico Buffalmacco (active c. 1315–1336) was an Italian painter who worked in Florence, Bologna and Pisa.
 Although none of his known work has survived, he is widely assumed to be the painter of a most influential fresco cycle in the Camposanto in Pisa, featuring the "The Three Dead and the Three Living", the "Triumph of Death", the "Last Judgement", the "Hell", and the "Thebais" (several episodes from the lives of the Holy Fathers in the Desert).
 Painted some ten years before the Black Death spread over Europe in 1348, the cycle - a "painted sermon" (L. Bolzoni) - enjoyed an extraordinary success after that date, and was often imitated throughout Italy.
 The youngsters' party enjoying themselves in a beautiful garden while Death piles mounds of corpses all around is likely to have inspired the setting of Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron", written a few years after the Black Death. Theories of the Black Death
Theories of the Black Death are a variety of explanations that have been advanced to explain the nature and transmission of the Black Death (1347–50).
 A number of epidemiologists and historians since the 1980s have challenged the traditional view that the Black Death was caused by plague based on the type and spread of the disease.
 The confirmation in 2010 and 2011 that "Yersinia pestis" DNA was associated with a large number of plague sites has renewed focus on plague as the leading hypothesis, but has not yet led to a final resolution of all these questions. Erfurt massacre (1349)
The Erfurt massacre refers to the massacre of the Jewish community in Erfurt, Germany, on March 21, 1349.
 Accounts of the number of Jews killed in the massacre vary from between 100 to approximately 3000.
 Some Jews set fire to their homes and possessions and perished in the flames before they could be lynched.
 The many Black Death persecutions and massacres that occurred in France and Germany at that time were sometimes in response to accusations that the Jews were responsible for outbreaks of the Black Death, and other times justified by the belief that killing the local Jews would prevent the spread of the Black Death to that locale.
 Although these beliefs, and the accompanying massacres, were frequently encouraged by local bishops or itinerant Flagellants, the Catholic Church, including Pope Clement VI under whom the Flagellants and the Black Death began, and his successor, Innocent VI, were firmly against it.
 In a papal bull condemning the Flagellant movement in late 1349, Pope Clement VI criticized "shedding the blood of Jews" among their other objectionable activities.
 Erfurt later suffered the ravages of the Black Plague, where over 16,000 residents died during a ten-week period in 1350. Villa Pisani, Montagnana
The Villa Pisani is a patrician villa outside the city walls of Montagnana, Veneto, northern Italy. Wilmorton
Wilmorton is a suburb of the city of Derby, England.
 It is situated between Alvaston and Osmaston, to the south of the city centre on the A6 from Deadman’s Lane to the Canal Bridge; the former is aligned to the old town boundary and named from the medieval track that lead to the plague pit dug 1348 during the Great Plague or Black Death.
 Victims of the Black Death were buried there (the burial site is now under Pride Park).
 It was given the name Wilmorton by the post office in 1887.
 The area was named after Reverend Sir George Wilmot-Horton, 5th Baronet of Osmaston and was formed out of the Osmaston Hall estate which was broken up in the 1880s. Villa Bordoni
"Villa Bordoni" is an Italian villa outside of Greve in Chianti in Tuscany, close to Montefioralle.
 It has been restored into a country house hotel by David and Catherine Gardner.
 It is 45 minutes from Florence. Adoration of the Shepherds (Poussin)
The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of 1633–34 by the French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), now in the National Gallery, London (Room 19).
 It is in oils on canvas, and measures 97.2 x 74 cm (with uneven edges).
 Unusually for Poussin, it is signed "N. Pusin.fe" ["fecit"] on the stone at lower right.
 By 1637, soon after it was painted, it was owned by Cardinal Gian Carlo de' Medici (16111663), the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany and was placed in his villa outside Florence. Borodale
Borodale was a villa outside the town of Enniscorthy, in Co.
 Wexford, Ireland.