1 The Decameron Introduction Giovanni Boccaccio 1313 1375 I say then that the years of the beatific incarnation of the Son of God had reached the tale of one thousand three hundred and forty eight when in the illustrious city of Florence the fairest of all the cities of Italy there made its appearance that deadly pestilence which whether disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies or sent upon us mortals by God in His just wrath by way of retribution for our iniquities had had its origin some years before in the East whence after destroying an innumerable multitude of living beings it had propagated itself without respite from place to place and so calamitously had spread into the West In Florence despite all that human wisdom and forethought could devise to avert it as the cleansing of the city from many impurities by officials appointed for the purpose the refusal of entrance to all sick folk and the adoption of many precautions for the preservation of health despite also humble supplications addressed to God and often repeated both in public procession and otherwise by the devout towards the beginning of the spring of the said year the doleful effects of the pestilence began to be horribly apparent by symptoms that showed as if miraculous Not such were they as in the East where an issue of blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death but in men a women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits some of which grew as large as a common apple others as an egg some more some less which the common folk called gavoccioli From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently after which the form of the malady began to change black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere now few and large then minute and numerous And as the gavocciolo had been and still were an infallible token of approaching death such also were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves Which maladies seemed set entirely at naught both the art of the physician and the virtue of physic indeed whether it was that the disorder was of a nature to defy such treatment or that the physicians were at fault besides the qualified there was now a multitude both of men and of women who practiced without having received the slightest tincture of medical science and being in ignorance of its source failed to apply the proper remedies in either case not merely were those that covered few but almost all within three days from the appearance of the said symptoms sooner or later died and in most cases without any fever or other attendant malady Moreover the virulence of the pest was the greater by reason the intercourse was apt to convey it from the sick to the whole just as fire devours things dry or greasy when they are brought close to it the evil went yet further for not merely by speech or association with the sick was the malady communicated to the healthy with consequent peril of common death but any that touched the clothes the sick or aught else that had been touched or used by these seemed thereby to contract the disease 2 That which I have now to relate sounds so marvelous that had not many and I among them observed it with their own eyes I had hardly dared to credit it much less to set it down in writing though I had had it from the lips of a credible witness I say then that such was the energy of the contagion of the said pestilence that it was not merely propagated from man to mail but what is much more startling it was frequently observed that things which had belonged to one sick or dead of the disease if touched by some other living creature not of the human species were the occasion not merely of sickening but of an almost instantaneous death Whereof my own eyes as I said a little before had cognizance one day among others by the following experience The rags of a poor man who had died of the disease being strewn about the open street two hogs came thither and after as is their wont no little trifling with their snouts took the rags between their teeth and tossed them to and fro about their chaps whereupon almost immediately they gave a few turns and fell down dead as if by poison upon the rags which in an evil hour they had disturbed In which circumstances not to speak of many others of a similar or even graver complexion divers apprehensions and imaginations were engendered in the minds of such as were left alive inclining almost all of them to the same harsh resolution to wit to shun and abhor all contact with the sick and all that belonged to them thinking thereby to make each his own health secure Among whom there were those who thought that to live temperately and avoid all excess would count for much as a preservative against seizures of this kind Wherefore they banded together and dissociating themselves from all others formed communities in houses where there were no sick and lived a separate and secluded life which they regulated with the utmost care avoiding every kind of luxury but eating and drinking moderately of the most delicate viands and the finest wines holding converse with none but one another lest tidings of sickness or death should reach them and diverting their minds with music and such other delights as they could devise Others the bias of whose minds was in the opposite direction maintained that to drink freely frequent places of public resort and take their pleasure with song and revel sparing to satisfy no appetite and to laugh and mock at no event was the sovereign remedy for so great an evil and that which they affirmed they also put in practice so far as they were able resorting day and night now to this tavern now to that drinking with an entire disregard of rule or measure and by preference making the houses of others as it were their inns if they but saw in them aught that was particularly to their taste or liking which they were readily able to do because the owners seeing death imminent had become as reckless of their property as of their lives so that most of the houses were open to all comers and no distinction was observed between the stranger who presented himself and the rightful lord Thus adhering ever to their inhuman determination to shun the sick as far as possible they ordered their life In this extremity of our city s suffering and tribulation the venerable
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