How Plague Influences and Changed the Lives in Venice and Florence - Essay Example

Bubonic Plague: Impact on Venice and Florence. Institution: Date: 1 Bubonic Plague: Impact on Venice and Florence. Over the course of human history, few words are as imbued with the power to strike dread into the hearts of men as the ‘Plague.’ The word is derived from the Greek ‘plege,’ meaning ‘stroke,’ connoting the speed with which the victim succumbs to the attack of the disease.1 This colossal killer stormed across the world in three successive pandemic waves: The Justinian Plague (541 – 544 A.D.), which destroyed about 50% of the world’s population; The Great Pandemic (1348 – 1665), which spread from Asia to Europe, with an estimated mortality rate of 45 million people worldwide and The Third Pandemic, which originated in the Yunan Province of China in 1892 and ended in San Francisco in 1909. The Plague continues to erupt sporadically up to present times, when advances in antibiotic treatment have fortunately made us better equipped to deal with it. 2 Following closely on the heels of the cataclysmic Famine of 1315 – 1317, the Great Pandemic of 1347 – 1352, variously called the Great Dying, the Pestilence, the Black Death and the Bubonic Plague, was “a blight that would forever change the face of Europe.” 3 The City States of Italy were among the nations which bore the brunt of it’s’ ravages. Both Venice and Florence suffered devastating attacks from the Bubonic Plague, with similar effects on their demographics, religion, economy and culture: however, in the long term, while the plague led to Venice’s political downfall, it was one of the seeds responsible for the blossoming of the Italian Renaissance in Florence. The pathogen responsible for the Bubonic Plague is the bacillus Yersinia Pestis, isolated and identified by the French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin in 1894. It is endemic in rats, where it persists in the bloodstream of it’s’ host. The vector which carries the pathogen and causes it’s’ spread is the Rat Flea (Xenopsylla cheopis), which ingests the pathogen when it bites an infected rat. The bacillus rapidly proliferates in the digestive tract of the flea, where it solidifies and blocks digestion. The ravenous flea continues to bite rats and unable to swallow, regurgitates the rats’ blood, along with the pathogen, into the rats’ bloodstream. Infected rats either die or suppress the infection and continue to host the pathogen. When the population of animal hosts decreases, the fleas bite men and the human immune system, ill equipped to handle the pathogen, succumbs. The Plague in humans is of three types: Bubonic Plague, Pneumonic Plague and Septicaemic Plague. Bubonic Plague is contacted through flea bite and has an incubation period of two to nineteen days. It begins with a fever and the swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck, armpits and groin. These swollen lymph nodes are called ‘buboes’: hence, Bubonic Plague. From the lymph nodes, the bacilli spread through the bloodstream and infect the spleen, lungs and the meninges of the brain. Diarrhea and delirium follow. The blood capillaries, blocked by the bacilli, rupture and hemorrhage under the epidermis, causing dark, black patches on the skin: hence, the Black Death. On about the fifth day, the buboes burst through the skin, oozing pus and causing the victim to leap about in agony: the ‘danse macabre,’ or Dance of Death. The victim usually died by the fifth day.4 Pneumonic Plague is transmitted directly from humans to humans, through airborne saliva and thin, watery sputum coughed up by the victims. No vector is needed and it proves fatal in 95% of cases. Septicaemic Plague is the rarest form and has 100% fatality2 within hours of the infection. The bloodstream is directly affected, leading to massive hemorrhaging, shock and death. 5 The Bubonic Plague is believed to have originated in the marmot population of Central Asia and to have been carried by Asian trappers in marmot skins through Central Asia to the Black Sea, along the Silk Road from China to the Genoese settlement at the Crimean Port of Kaffa. From this bustling trade centre, infected rats carried the pathogen by sea in all directions, until it emerged as the Bubonic Plague in humans on board ships by late 1347. The Plague also spread along the Spice Route which extended along sea lanes from South Asia to the Persian Gulf and then overland to the Levant. 6 Italian merchants, exposed to the Plague as they plied the trade routes from Central Asia to Europe, hastened home in their rat infested ships to escape its’ clutches. As the infected rats on board died, the fleas jumped to human hosts. The port cities of Genoa and Venice became the starting points of the Plague in Italy. The Genoese attempted to escape the Plague by forbidding entrance to foreign ships: this hastened the spread of the Plague by dispersing the infected ships to more ports. 7 After the Black Death of 1347 – 1351, came the Great Plague of Milan or the Italian Plague of 1629 – 1631, which particularly targeted the Lombardy region, including Venice. Medieval Italian cities were ideal breeding grounds for the Plague, as they were densely populated, lacked any sense of hygiene, functional sewage systems or garbage removal and were already overrun with rats in close proximity to humans. 8 People of all ages were equally susceptible to infection, the weak and elderly being more vulnerable. The Plague was virulent through3 all seasons of the year and Italian peasants, already malnourished, were easy targets. The casual handling of corpses spread the infection to the handlers. 9 Medieval Italy lacked medical skills and could not contain the disease. It was attributed to Divine retribution or a miasma and responses were characterized by religious superstitions, such as praying to St. Sebastian. Beyond human control, the Great Plague ran its’ own course in the world and abated by 1665 with the last outbreak in London. Venice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was one of the greatest maritime powers of Europe. Following in the footsteps of Marco Polo (1271 – 1295), Venetian merchants plied the Silk Road to China, coming back with ships laden with silks and spices, laying the foundation of the unprecedented prosperity of the Venetian Republic. The Venetians were sailors par excellence: Petrarch, who visited Venice in 1362, extolled their spirit of maritime exploration. Venice’s position as a maritime power and flourishing mercantile economy was consolidated by enlightened government policies, such as entering into strategic peace accords with other regional powers and building up a strong military fleet to provide protection to its’ trading fleet. Venice’s ideal location at the head of the Adriatic Sea bolstered its’ trade and shipping. Then came the Black Death of 1347 – 1351 and its’ second wave as the Italian Plague of 1629 – 1631, which decimated Venice. The pestilence was brought to the Republic by the same sailors and sea-faring merchants who brought Venice her wealth, through the flea-infested rats in the holds of their medieval ships. 10 The second wave wrought greater havoc than the first. Venice, in an enlightened countermeasure, well ahead of the times, attempted to block the spread of the Plague by mandating that all incoming ships calling at the port stayed anchored off-shore on a separate island for a period of forty days: a period which substantially exceeded the course of the Plague. Breaking this rule merited the death penalty. However, this measure was ineffective as no one was aware that the actual carriers of the pestilence were not only the sailors but the infected rats which climbed down the rigging and ropes and swam to the shore to spread the pathogen. The word ‘quarantine’ is derived from the Italian word ‘quaranti’ for forty. 11 The effect of the Plague on Venetian demographics was unprecedented: 80,000 fatalities occurred in eighteen months. On a single day in November, 595 victims died. The fatalities included the Doge, Nicolo Contarini. Unable to contain the deadly pestilence, the government turned to Divine intervention: the landmark Basilica della Santa Maria della Salute, or the Basilica of St. Mary of Health, was constructed as a plea for deliverance from the Plague. Every year, up to the present, November 21st , the day of Mary’s Presentation at the Temple, is celebrated as the Festa della Madonna della Salute. The city elders walk in solemn procession from St. Marks’ Square across the Grand Canal, on specially constructed pontoon bridges, to pay tribute to St. Mary in commemoration of the city’s deliverance. A still popular costume mask at the Venetian carnival is that of the Doctor with a long, pointed nose: a breathing device used by doctors during the Plague to hold vinegar. The horrendous casualties suffered by Venice demolished the very infrastructure4 of the City State and destroyed the economy. Inflation was rampant, prices soared and trade came to a standstill: both due to merchant mortality and the reluctance of other States to deal with the plague-infested City. The undermanned military fleet could no longer sustain its’ power over the shipping lanes and Venice was left exposed and vulnerable to attack by the Ottoman Turks, who had long been looking westwards towards Venice in their plans for expansion. Weakened demographically, economically and militarily, Venice capitulated at the end of the War of Candia (1645 – 1669) and signed a Peace Treaty with the Turks, losing many of her islands, including Crete. Venice lost control over her key trade routes and strove weakly against the Turks until the final capitulation to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797, when the Venetian constitution was abolished and the Republic came to an end. The Bubonic Plague was thus the precipitating factor in the political downfall of Venice. 12 Florence bore the brunt of the Plague in 1347 – 1351 and on a smaller scale in 1633. The devastation was so incredibly vast that Petrarch wrote, “Oh happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as fable.” 13 An estimated 100,000 people died in Florence. The rapidly mounting death toll defied the logistics of proper burial. The Compagnia Della Misericordia, founded in Florence in 1244 to tend the ill, attempted to collect and bury the corpses but the members, dressed in5 red robes and hoods which masked the face, except for the eyes, could not cope. Corpses lay rotting on the streets for days. Due to the lack of coffins, the dead were carried in twos and threes on boards to common pits. Corpses were buried so hurriedly and cursorily that “dogs dragged them forth and devoured the bodies.” 14 As other Cities cut off ties with Florence, banning the movement of people and merchandise out of the beleaguered city, the situation deteriorated further. One interesting episode in this instance is that of Galileo, who experienced difficulty in gaining censor approval for his book Dialogues Concerning the two Chief World Systems, from Rome as the manuscript would be confiscated if it left plague-infested Florence. However, in 1652, Florence and Genoa signed an agreement over mutual health practices, in order to avoid quarantines against each other. The Florentine Commissioner of Health ordered all nuns to pray continuously for forty days for deliverance from the Plague. On a more pragmatic note, city officials initiated a campaign to clean the city, established a pest house outside the city wall, collected and collated medical data from doctors, buried plague victims in common graves outside the city walls and made the burning of all the victims’ belongings, including furs and carpets, mandatory (a fortuitous decision, despite ignorance of the role played by fleas in spreading the pestilence!). 15 However, once the Black Death had passed, Florence experienced an unprecedented resurgence and life. Tempered by the experience of the Bubonic Plague, the city authorities provided enlightened leadership and civic services and Florence prospered economically and culturally. Confronted with the obvious helplessness of the Church in combating the Plague, men who had hitherto superstitiously and blindly believed in the power and authority of the Church, broke away from its’ influence. The Black Death undermined the 6hold of the Church on men’s minds. Freedom of thought now blossomed, leading to a ‘new birth:’ the Italian Renaissance, with its’ intellectually free universities, new voices and questioning mindsets and the emergence of scientific thought. Thus, for Florence, the Black Death was instrumental in heralding a New Birth.16 Two eyewitness accounts of the 1348 Bubonic Plague in Florence exist: Boccaccio’s introduction to The Decameron and Marchione di Coppo Stefani’s The Florentine Chronicle. Boccaccio describes the “deadly pestilence” originating in the east, caused by planetary alignments or Divine retribution and resistant to both civic measures, such as garbage removal and quarantine of the ill, as well as religious measures, such as processions and prayers. He details the symptoms: “swellings … which were as big as apples … the body would be covered with dark and livid spots.” The ignorant doctors proved useless. The pestilence spread “like a fire through dry grass or oil,” through men and animals, through contact with the victims or their belongings. Fear of contagion led to the ruthless abandonment of the sick by their friends and relatives. People opted to live lives of extreme frugality or extreme excess, or to trust in the efficacy of flowers, herbs and spices. Anarchy reigned: “all reverence for the laws, both of God and of man, fell apart and dissolved,” as authority was either dead or incapacitated. The wealthy fled to the surrounding countryside. The dead were carried away hastily by a low class grave-digging fraternity to the nearest Church and buried without ceremony. Corpses lay piled up on the streets and were carried away in twos and threes on boards. Cemeteries ran out of space and “they excavated great pits in which they’d place hundreds of newly arrived7 corpses, and each corpse would be covered with a thin layer of dirt until the pit was filled.” So great were the fatalities that “people cared no more for the deaths of other people than they did for the death of a goat.” The countryside was also affected and the peasants abandoned work. Boccaccio laments that, between March and July, the pestilence “killed off one hundred thousand human creatures for certain within the walls of the city of Florence.”17 Stefani’s account of 1348 Florence matches Boccaccio’s in many respects. He also details the high mortality: “almost none of the ill survived past the fourth day,” the inefficacy of physicians and cures, the symptoms of the Plague, including buboes, fever, spitting blood and saliva and the abandonment of the ill by the healthy: “Child abandoned the father, husband the wife, wife the husband, one brother the other, one sister the other.” Bodies were buried in mass trenches, “layer on layer, just as one puts layers of cheese in a lasagna.” The sextons, called ‘beccamorti’ (vultures), charged exorbitant fees. Food became scarce and “priceless,” as did candles, palls and clothes of mourning. Due to the scarcity of resources, the government issued ordinances restricting ostentatious ceremony and fixing a cap on prices. All the guilds stopped working and shops and taverns remained closed. Streets were deserted. Apothecaries, doctors, beccamorti, poultry sellers and poultice makers became prosperous, if they escaped death. Stefani says that the pestilence raged from March to September, with a mortality rate of 96,000. After the Plague, Florence’s traditions had crumbled and several government ordinances, concerning everything from physical modesty to servants’ wages, from ostentatious 8spending at weddings to peasant’s demand for greater compensation, were passed.18 In both Venice and Florence, as in all Italy and Europe as a whole, the Bubonic Plague had a similar economic, religious and cultural impact. With a third of Europe’s population dead, the supply of peasants could not meet the demand for their services. This led to an increase in their wages and a rise in their standard of living. The repressive condition of serfdom was gradually replaced by wage labor. The religious impact included the superstitious search for scapegoats for the Plague: the Jews were accused of causing the Plague, subjected to pogroms and persecuted into confessions. Witchcraft trials gained momentum. In the face of the Church’s helplessness, Anti-clerical movements emerged.19 Artistically, the Plague brought about an obsession with death, as seen in the numerous medieval depictions of the ‘dans macabre.’ Literature too, centered on this theme, as in The Decameron. The Plague led to deurbanization, as people realized that the disease was more rampant in areas of dense population. The Plague’s impartial killing of high and low, demolished the myth of the Divine Right of kings and the impregnable higher classes. Democracy raised its’ head. The Church ironically gained in wealth through the donations of many who sought to evade the Plague by donations to God. A group called the Flagellants emerged, who served as public ‘whipping boys,’ who whipped themselves to earn remission of sins for the people who paid for their services.9 A positive fallout was the impetus given to research and study in medicine and surgery, which were no longer mere branches of religious study.20 In conclusion, the Bubonic Plague transformed medieval Italy. While Venice’s position as an aggressive mercantile, maritime power was lost, Florence was swept by the winds of intellectual change which led to the birth of the Italian Renaissance. References. Bishop, Rebecca A. “The History of Bubonic Plague.” February 12, 2003. Article on-line. Available from http://pathology.uth.tmc.edu/courses/BT2003/BTstudents2003_files%5CPlague2003.htm “Bubonic Plague.” Article on-line. Available from http://www.luc.edu/faculty/Idossey/bubonicanov6.htm CBWInfo.com. “Plague: essential data.” 1199. Available from http://www.cbwinfo.com/Biological/Pathogens/YP.html Damen, Mark. “Section 6: The Bubonic Plague.” USU 1320: History and Civilization. http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/06PLAGUE.htm Halsall, Paul. “Boccaccio: The Decameron, Introduction.” Medieval Sourcebook: Boccaccio: The Death. Richard Hooker, 1993. 1996. Available from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/decameronintro.html Leah, Heather. “The Bubonic Plague’s Influence Over the Catholic Church and the Renaissance in Florence. June 2006. Available from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/36705/the_bubonic_plagues_influence_over. html?page=2 Murphy, Clara. “The Bubonic Plague and the Impact on Venice.” ICE Case Number 147. August 2005. Available from http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/plague.htm Morrison, Marjorie and Kolle, Bracken. “The Plague Epidemic in Italy, 1630-1633.” The Galileo Project. 1995. Available from http://galileo.rice.edu/fam/bubonic_plague.html Netahlo-Barret, Lori, M. “The Bubonic Plague (Yersinia pestis): The Black Death.” October 4, 2005. Available from http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/general/articles/BlackDeath.aspx Stefani, Marchione di Cappo. “ Rubric 643: Concerning a Mortality In The City Of Florence In Which Many People Died.” The Florentine Chronicle. Editor Niccolo Rodolico, 1903. Available from http://www3.iath/virginia.edu/osheim/marchione.html Tuckman, Barbara. “A Description of the Bubonic Plague.” A Distant Mirror. N.d. http://www.thecaveonline.com/APEH/Plaguedescription.html Thomas, Richard. “The Role of Trade in Transmitting the Black Death.” TED Case Studies. 1997. Available from http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/bubonic.htm Read More