Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Maps
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface to the First Edition
- Author’s Note on the New and Revised Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Part I What Was the Black Death?
- Part II The Origin of Bubonic Plague and the History of Plague before the Black Death
- Part III The Outbreak and Spread of the Black Death
- Part IV Mortality in the Black Death
- Part V A Turning Point in History?
- Bibliography
- Index
- Subject Index
- Index of Geographical Names and People
- Name Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Maps
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface to the First Edition
- Author’s Note on the New and Revised Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Part I What Was the Black Death?
- Part II The Origin of Bubonic Plague and the History of Plague before the Black Death
- Part III The Outbreak and Spread of the Black Death
- Part IV Mortality in the Black Death
- Part V A Turning Point in History?
- Bibliography
- Index
- Subject Index
- Index of Geographical Names and People
- Name Index
Summary
Introduction
The available data on mortality rates in the Black Death in Italy relate to the highly developed northern third of the peninsula. There can be no doubt that Italy went through an unimaginable catastrophe. In Florence, Marchionne di Coppo Stefani described the social situation in this way:
All in the city, had nothing else to do than to carry dead bodies to be buried; many died who at their end did not make confession or receive the last rites; and many died alone and many died of hunger […] At every church were dug one or more pits, down to the water-table, large and deep for high-class people; those there who were not very rich, who died at night, in their turn were taken above the shoulder and thrown into the pit or paid high price to the one who did it. In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shovelled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then added another layer of earth, a layer with little earth, as one makes lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese.
In the chronicler’s mind, the most frightening feature of this enormous demographic disaster, according to the religious beliefs and mentality of the time, was that people died without a priest who heard confession and administered the last rites, and, hence, in the moment of death faced perdition and eternal punishment. Observation of secondary catastrophe effects, that many people died from lack of nursing care, and even from starvation, also had made strong impressions on the author.
Population estimates show that Tuscany must have had over two million inhabitants on the eve of the Black Death, a substantial portion of Italy’s population. Politically, Tuscany was divided into several city states, the ‘comunes’. By far the largest was the Republic of Florence, which had already conquered and subjugated a number of previously independent city states or parts of territories, some shortly before the Black Death. Good records providing mortality data are extant for the city of Florence and some other Tuscan city states which, consequently, will constitute the territorial centrepiece of the discussion of the mortality caused by the Black Death in Italy.
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- The Complete History of the Black Death , pp. 698 - 730Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021