|The plague of Florence, 1348; an episode in the Decameron by Boccaccio. Etching by L. Sabatelli the elder after G. Boccaccio. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0))|
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) is universally celebrated for his masterpiece The Decameron, an appealing assemblage of one hundred loosely connected novellas, all designed, in part, to distract the fourteenth-century Italian audience from the Black Death plaguing the country. Some of the tales are slapstick misadventures to make the reader laugh, others are more sober. But none are as brutally realistic as the author’s introductory chapter.1
In it he describes the physical, emotional, and social situation of the pestilence that struck Europe in the fourteenth century, and often anticipates the current pandemic and the reactions of those of us living through it. Indeed, Boccaccio’s singular frankness exposes that, in dealing with COVID-19, some people have not updated their thinking medically, socially, or morally.
The plague struck Florence in the spring of 1348 while Boccaccio was in residence. According to the author, its arrival was not unforeseen. In fact, it was known to have appeared earlier that year in northern Italy, presumed to have originated in the East.2
With little available scientific knowledge, many of Boccaccio’s compatriots attributed la peste to the “wrath of God,” a punishment for man’s wicked ways. Others blamed it on the “miasma,” a newly popularized theory that putrid air was the cause.3 City officials, however, were wise enough to begin a cleanup of the city’s filth and to invoke quarantines that barred the sick from entering the city. But these steps, Boccaccio tells us, perhaps not without cynicism, were not of “any avail.”4
No one then, of course, could have known that the true origin of the pestilence was Y. pestis, a gram-negative aerobic coccobacillus. Disease developed when fleas, who normally fed on mice and rats, sought another host in humans when the rodents died. After ingesting blood tainted with Y. pestis, the fleas’ stomachs would engorge and cause them to die, yet the bacteria in the dried blood of their desiccated bodies could remain viable for weeks. While some creatures appear unaffected by contact with these fleas or their remnants, others, like human beings, can become infected and die. Such was the nature of the calamity facing Florence.5
Boccaccio did not know the cause of the mysterious pestilenza, but he was shocked by the course of the disease, the care (or lack of care) of the sick and dying, and the surprisingly bizarre behavior of the Florentines. In his introduction to The Decameron, he puts aside any notions of God’s intervention along with suggestions that miasmic air had caused the deaths of two-thirds of the Florentine population. Instead, the author plunges headlong into describing the illness and what he clearly recognizes as a contagious disease—one that will unfortunately be soon followed by grievous social disorder.
He begins with a concise description of the disease’s onset, correctly noting its variability. In the East, he reports that the pestilence manifested itself in “bleeding from the nose.” However, in Florence he sees it progress first “with certain swellings . . . in the groin or under the armpits, growths that soon grew to the size of . . . apples,” or “the size of eggs.” These, the people called gavoccioli (buboes). Soon after the buboes appeared, the body of the infected person became covered with what the author describes as “black spots” (purpura). Death, of course, was imminent.6
Medical care failed, says Boccaccio, either because there was no cure or because doctors were indifferent, just plain “ignorant,” or perhaps not even real doctors. Soon, however, it became clear that approaching those who were ill was dangerous. Even touching their clothing or bodies might be deadly. Between the lack of medical attendance and the virulence of the pestilence, many died who need not have done so, especially among the lower classes.7
The situation of the poor