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Black Death plague enters Gobi Desert.
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Black Death reaches coast of the Black Sea
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• Source: Michael of Piazza – 12 Genoese galleys brought infection to port of Messina. (from Crimea?) pneumonic “sickness clinging to their very bones”
• BD enters the city of Messina. Citizens turn on the sailors and drove them from port. Fled to southern Sicily carrying the plague.
• BD scatters around Mediterranean.
• First victims reach Catania. After accepting refugees in hospitals, impose strict controls over immigration. Plague victims who died were buried in “pits outside the walls”. -
First time Black Death reaches the port of Messina
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• Florence, Italy struck by Black Death; nearly sixty thousand die in a few months.
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• All southern Italy overcome by Black death.
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• BD arrives simultaneously in Sicily, Genoa and Venice.
• BD arrives in Pisa a few weeks later – it is the main point of entry to Central and Northern Italy.
• BD moved rapidly inland to Rome and Tuscany.
• BD enters Florence – source: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio “almost all…died, and in most cases without any fever or other attendant malady…”p.46 Ziegler
• Florentines self-quarantine themselves, shun the sick and either immerse in Epicurean delights or abstain from luxury of every kind -
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• Plague reaches Orvieto by means of an Ambassador who arrived from Perugia towards end of April, 1348. Plague reached its peak in July. Septicaemic form caused people to die within 24 hours. 500 victims died a day. Final mortality was 90% of the population. Dr. Carpentier puts mortality rate at about 50%.
• Naples 63,000 died in two months. In most Italian cities the mortality rate was 60%.
• Venice – 600 Venetians a day died. -
• The Doge, Andrea Dondolo and the Great Council appoint 3 noblemen to discuss measures of checking the spread of the plague. Designated remote burial places at S Erasmo, S Marco Boccacalme on special barges where dead would be buried 5 feet underground.
• A quarantine station was set up at the Nazarethum where voyagers from the Orient were isolated for 40 days.
• In Milan, victims of plague were walled up inside their homes left to perish dead or alive. -
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- Two hundred thousand die by Fall; 60,000 die in Tunis, Africa.
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• Orvieto – government acted with apathy to BD.
• Orvieto official records made no mention of plague, no processions – height of BD -
• Black Death arrives in Pistoia and Siena Italy.
• Council of Pistoia enacted nine pages of regulations to guard the town against infection. No imports were allowed, bans on travel was relaxed on May 23. Government acted responsibly with preventative measures. -
• Siena – source: Agnolo di Tura states 50,000 died, many fled leaving only ten thousand inhabitants. It loses 30-50% of the population. Cathedral was left unfinished. Wool industry closed down and import of oil suspended. June 2, all civil courts were recessed by the City Council until 3 months later.
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Flagellant movement appears in Hungary
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• By October 96,000 died in Florence according to Marchione di Copo Stefani, who wrote his Florentine Chronicle in the late 1370s.
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• Black Death runs its course throughout Italy.
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• Another way of the plague goes through Siena. St. Catherine works as a nurse and as a grave digger burying the dead.
