The Power of the Plague

The outbreak of the Black Death around the year 1348 was one of the most significant events in European history. Volker Reinhardt reconstructs the course of the epidemic, highlights conditions in different cities and shows us how survivors managed to carry on for so many months living in political and economic chaos. He also takes into account the impact of the disease on religious and cultural life. Any similarities to the current pandemic are entirely coincidental, of course!

As the plague crept closer and closer to Milan in 1348, its ruler, Luchino Visconti, decided to put the whole city in isolation. Those already sick were kept away from others as a precautionary measure. Milan was the only city in Italy to protect itself successfully against the plague.

Volker Reinhardt’s look at available sources on the subject now brings this compelling account of how this pan-European wildfire was more the sum of individual, local dramas that were dealt with by people at local level in their own ways: by the overthrow of political leaders, the persecution of minority groups, the renewal of old networks and, as in Milan, a positive response to absolute rule. Descriptions of life during the plague years, such as those by Boccaccio, are presented using classical role models, while the reality gleaned from anonymous chroniclers of the period, from pictures and buildings all combine to suggest something different. We find a deep-seated sense of uncertainty and a yearning for a return to the normality that had been lost.