{"id":205,"date":"2020-06-05T22:22:14","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T22:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/histonaut.com\/?p=205"},"modified":"2020-06-05T22:23:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T22:23:28","slug":"giovanni-boccaccio-prologue-to-the-decameron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/05\/giovanni-boccaccio-prologue-to-the-decameron\/","title":{"rendered":"Giovanni Boccaccio, Prologue to the Decameron"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Black death in Florence (1348)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Boccaccio\u2019s description of the outbreak of the Black Death in Florence in 1348 is a valuable source of information not only for historians but also for those who study human behaviour under extreme conditions. As an eyewitness the author of the Decameron reported in details how different groups and classes of the medieval city reacted to this unprecedented disaster which changed the entire course of European history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Florence\u2019s municipal authorities took a number of\nmeasures to prevent the spreading of the disease: \u201chuge amounts of filth were\nremoved from the city; sick people were forbidden to enter the city; advice was\ngiven on how to stay healthy\u201d. This description shows that in the 14th<\/sup>\ncentury cleaning, quarantine and public warning were already considered\nnecessary to stop infection. But the above prophylaxes combined with numerous \u201chumble\nsupplications to God\u201d made by \u201cdevout persons\u201d proved inefficient against \u201cthe\nbubonic plague\u201d. Boccaccio\u2019s description of the sickness symptoms is somewhat\nimaginary but reflects well the lethal character of the Black Death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            At the beginning, many citizens did not realize the\nvirulence of the plague because \u201ca multitude of people, male and female, with\nno medical training\u201d tried to cure it, obviously, in vain. But as soon as they\nnoticed how quickly this mortal infection was spreading they adopted \u201cthe cruel\nstrategy\u201d \u201cto avoid, even flee the sick and their belongings\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Boccaccio dwells on behaviour of different groups of\nwealthy Florence\u2019s citizens faced with the Black Death. Some preferred moderate\nliving in isolated \u201csmall groups\u201d \u201cshutting themselves up in houses where no\none had been sick\u201d and avoiding any contact with \u201cthe death and illness\noutside\u201d. Others, on the contrary, decided \u201cthat drinking a good deal, singing\nand having fun, laughing and joking\u201d would be the best remedy for them. They\nindulged in \u201cthis bestial behaviour\u201d day and night in taverns and abandoned\nhouses which \u201chad become common property\u201d after their dwellers died or fled. Many\nrich citizens neither secluded themselves nor sank into debauchery but when\ngoing outside had to carry \u201cflowers, fragrant herbs or various spices\u201d in order\nto fight \u201cthe stench of dead bodies and illness\u201d. \u201cA large number of men and\nwomen\u201d escaping from \u201cthe pestilence\u201d \u201cabandoned their city, houses, families\nand possessions\u201d and went to the countryside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In this horrible situation the very fabric of social\norder and family ties started to disintegrate. Florence\u2019s civil and clerical\nauthorities \u201ccould not perform their offices\u201d and help the population. Everyone\nwho fell sick was abandoned by friends, neighbors and even often family\nmembers. Even for \u201chuge salaries\u201d it was \u201chard to find\u201d servants for people\nattained with plague. Sick women \u201cno matter how attractive or beautiful\u201d they\nwere had to reject all shame and hire male servants to look after them. In\nBoccaccio\u2019s opinion this \u201cunheard of practice\u201d loosened morals of survivors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The number of people dying every day was really shocking.\nThat\u2019s why all funeral customs and practices changed tremendously. Even wealthy\ncitizens were accompanied to the burial place by a few relatives and neighbors\nand \u201coften none at all\u201d. Boccaccio seems somewhat troubled by the lack of\nrespect to dead personalities whose coffin was brought by gravediggers to the\nclosest church and put in the first \u201cunoccupied sepulchre\u201d in the presence of a\nfew clergymen without \u201cany lengthy, solemn services\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            But the situation of poor and middle class citizens was\nmuch worse, they had no means to leave their dwellings that\u2019s why \u201cthey fell\nsick by the thousands every day and almost always died\u201d. Copses were dragged\nout of the houses and collected in the streets without much ceremony. Most\nprobably this necessary work was done under the auspices of the church\nrepresented by \u201ctwo priests with a cross\u201d. The majority of poor people were\nburied nameless in huge common trenches \u201cby the hundreds\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The countryside surrounding Florence was not spared by\nthe Black Death. There \u201cpoor, miserable peasants and their families, who lacked\nthe care of doctors of the aid of servants, died more like beasts than humans\u201d.\nIn anticipation of their death they stopped caring about their possessions,\nfields and domestic animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             In conclusion, Boccaccio\ninforms us that \u201cmore than one hundred thousand people died within the walls of\nFlorence\u201d. He mourns deeply for his most distinguished, wealthy and noble\nfellow citizens ravished by the Black Death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Boccaccio on the\nplague” trans. David Burr. online at\nhttp:\/\/www.history.vt.edu\/Burr\/Boccaccio.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black death in Florence (1348) Boccaccio\u2019s description of the outbreak of the Black Death in Florence in 1348 is a valuable source of information not only for historians but also for those who study human behaviour under extreme conditions. As an eyewitness the author of the Decameron reported in details how different groups and classes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[122,123,121],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-black-death","tag-florence","tag-giovanni-boccaccio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/florence-plague-of-1348.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9td7q-3j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}