This was in 1347, and solemn processions and offerings were made for three days together to avert the pestilence from Florence; in December the price of bread again augmented, because Romagna had absorbed every bushel of grain from the Mugello district; Venice was empty and in want; Louis of Hungary’s invasion of Apulia, together with pestilence on the coast, prevented her customary supplies from Sicily and southern Italy. Guards were placed round the Florentine state and grain was once more purchased, so that the year 1348 came in with fear and hope, but some diminution of misery. All these sufferings had painfully prepared a way for heavier calamities, and they struck with killing force on a sickly, weak, and desponding people.
Whether the great plague of 1348 fell with more fatal effects on Florence than other places may be doubtful; yet the descriptive pen of Boccaccio [j] has thrown a pall of immortality over this scene of universal desolation and of death.[f]
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.