In 1348 the black death shattered Europe's health and wealth. After the cataclysm, with its population halved, the continent began - unexpectedly - to prosper. Italian merchants were doing well enough by the 15th century to lavish money on art and architecture. They also sponsored a rediscovery of Greek and Latin antiquity that inspired and liberated artists in paradoxically original ways. As medieval men tried to emulate the ancient greats, they created art fresher, more alive, more imaginative than anything that survives from the ancient world. By the early 1500s Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were bringing this new art to an almost unimaginable pitch of excellence. The Renaissance spread through Europe, even reaching London in the person of Hans Holbein.