The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09

by Unknown

BOCCACCIO’S ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE

[1348 A.D.]

The year of our Lord’s incarnation, 1348, had already come, when in the noble city of Florence, lovely beyond all others of Italy, appeared the mortal pestilence which by the operation of superior bodies, or from wicked deeds, was by the just judgment of God for our correction let loose on mortals. It began some years before in the eastern countries and after having deprived them of an inconceivable mass of living beings rolled westward in a continued course from realm to realm with mournful augmentation. Human wisdom and human prudence availed not, for the city had already been cleansed of its impurities by officers especially appointed; entrance was denied to all infected persons, and every means employed to preserve the public health. Neither were humble supplications to the Almighty more successful, although made not once but repeatedly in religious processions and divers other ways by devout persons; for very early in spring the dismal signs glared horribly palpable and manifested themselves in wonderful ways; not as in the east where bleeding at the nose was a plain symptom of inevitable death, but at the beginning, both in male and female, there appeared about the groins and under the arm-pits certain tumours some of which increased to the size of a common apple, others to that of an egg; and those greater and these less, and were vulgarly called gavoccioli. And from the two parts of the body above mentioned these deadly gavoccioli within a brief space began to sprout and swell indiscriminately in every other; and soon after this the nature of the disease began to change into black or livid spots, which in many appeared on the arms, thighs, and other places; some large and few, others small and numerous; and as the gavocciolo at first was and always remained a certain sign of death, so also were these spots on whomsoever they appeared.

For the cure of this malady neither the advice of medical men nor the virtues of any nostrum availed or profited; on the contrary, whether it were that the nature of the illness would not permit, or that the ignorance of doctors (of whom, besides regular physicians, the number of both sexes without a particle of knowledge was enormous) could not divine the cause and therefore could apply no remedy; not only few survived, but almost all about the third day from the appearance of these symptoms, some sooner, some later, most of them without fever or any other accident, expired.

There were some who fancied that to live moderately and avoid every excess would be most efficacious in resisting contagion, and so having formed their society they shrank from all the others by shutting themselves up in those houses where no sickness as yet existed; to live better they ate the most delicate food and drank the finest wines, but in great moderation, holding no intercourse with the outward world, nor permitting tales of death or sickness to reach their ears; but with music and every other diversion that their means afforded they continued to dwell in seclusion.

Others of a contrary opinion affirmed that drinking deep, and enjoyments, and singing, and rambling about for amusement, and satisfying every appetite, and mocking and ridiculing everything, was a sovereign antidote to all existing evil; and as they said so they did; for night and day, now at one tavern, now at another, onward they went; drinking without mode or measure, but mostly at other people’s houses, whatever pleased and delighted them; and this was easily done, for almost all, as if they had deserted life, abandoned the care of themselves and everything they possessed; wherefore most dwellings remained open to the world at large, and the stranger that entered used them as if he were the lawful owner; but with all this brutish sensuality they still kept aloof from the sick.

And in such affliction and misery was also the revered authority of our laws both divine and human that, deserted by their ministers, they had fallen to ruin and dissolution; for these like the rest were either sick or dead; or if any remnants existed they were useless; wherefore all persons were left to their own imaginings.

Many other people took a middle course between these two, neither restricting themselves in their food like the former, nor running to excess in drinking and dissipation like the latter, but made use of things moderately according to their wants; and instead of shutting themselves up they rambled about the town, some with bunches of flowers, some with odoriferous herbs, and others with fragrant mixtures of spices which they carried in their hands and continually applied to the nostrils, esteeming it an excellent thing to comfort the brain by their perfume because the air was loaded and disgusting with the stench of death, disease, and offensive medicaments. Some again entertained more unfeeling sentiments (as if they were haply more secure), declaring that there was no better, nor even so good a remedy for the plague as to fly before it; so, moved by this argument and caring only for themselves, numbers of both sexes abandoned their native city, their homes, their friendly meetings, their dearest relatives, and all their property, and sought those of the stranger; or else retired to the seclusion of their own country dwellings; as if the anger of God, being once moved thus to punish human wickedness, would spare the rod to them and strike only those enclosed within the walls; or, as if they counselled everyone to fly because the final hour of Florence was arrived.

Many died that haply might have lived by timely aid; so that between a want of that assistance which sufferers could not procure, and the malignant nature of this disease, the multitudes of those who daily and nightly expired in Florence would be terrible to hear, even without beholding; wherefore, almost of necessity, things contrary to all former habits were engendered amongst the surviving citizens.

Lamp, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence

It was a custom, and we still see it maintained, that in cases of death every female relation and neighbour should assemble within the house and there weep for his loss; and before the mansion every male kinsman and nearest neighbour also assembled, with other citizens in great numbers, attended by divers of the clergy according to the dead man’s quality; thence on the shoulders of his peers, with funeral pomp of torch and music, the corpse was slowly borne away to that church which he had previously chosen for a sepulchre. But when the pestilence raged most fiercely these things almost entirely ceased, and new customs superseded them; for people then died not only without such assemblies of wailing women, but passed from the world in many instances without even a single witness; and few were those to whom the piteous sobs and tears of relatives were in mercy conceded; but instead thereof was heard the laugh or the jest, or the convivial feast! and this custom the women in general, casting aside their sex’s softness, did for their own especial advantage most quickly learn.

There were but few whose bodies were accompanied to the church by more than ten or twelve of their neighbours; nor were even these honourable citizens, but certain gravediggers from the lowest classes named becchini who performed this mercenary service; they roughly shouldered the bier and moved hastily and carelessly along, not to the church which the deceased had selected, but to the nearest cemetery, led by some half-dozen priests with few lights and sometimes none, who, assisted by the becchini, and not troubling about a funeral service, tossed the body into any empty pit that they happened to find.

The treatment of the lower and a great portion of the middle classes was still worse, because the greater part of these being confined either by hope or poverty to their houses, thousands daily sickened, and being destitute of assistance were allowed to die; and many there were who daily and nightly terminated their existence in the streets, and many that expired in their own houses, the stench of whose carcasses was the first notice of their dissolution. Of these and other victims all places were full, and the neighbours, not less moved by the fear of putrid bodies than by charity towards the dead, with the assistance of public porters when they were to be had, dragged the corpses into the street and left them before their several doors where especially in the morning they were to be seen in heaps by those who wandered through the tainted thoroughfares.[j]