Causes Of The Great Plague
Most Spiritual Father, 27, March 1348
I have found it being of the utmost importance to inform you of all the ghastly things that are going on here in Florence, Italy. I have already buried my five children and wife, though I am sure that the hounds have unearthed them and devoured their putrid bodies. As we have just recently escaped a famine that had killed a huge crowd of the population here. Neighbors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters are abandoning each other leaving small children and even infants unaided. When my wife was still alive and had just begun the symptoms of the Great Plague, her body was turning black and bruised looking.
She was bleeding what seemed to be out of her skin. My children and I could smell her dying, which made it extremely difficult to be around her in her dying hour. My wife was decaying whilst still alive. When my first daughter Emily was experiencing her death I tried to drain her blood out to cleanse her body of sin and disease. After God’s will, I hung flowers, herbs and other perfumes to offset the repulsive smells coming from the blackened (hardly) corpses in the streets. So many people are deceased that there aren’t enough people to bury the dead. Lately the grave is the sea but then again wherever you die may be your grave. As I write this desperate plea, I can feel a boiling fever, my nose is beginning to bleed profusely and buboes are forming around my underarms. This is how I saw inevitable death with my whole family, it is my time. The community is dying without their last rights. Please end our torment and vagueness. Why were some spared and the rest not? What can survivors do to be christened? Is our God punishing us, and for what deed? When will God smile upon our flourishment again?
I have found it being of the utmost importance to inform you of all the ghastly things that are going on here in Florence, Italy. I have already buried my five children and wife, though I am sure that the hounds have unearthed them and devoured their putrid bodies. As we have just recently escaped a famine that had killed a huge crowd of the population here. Neighbors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters are abandoning each other leaving small children and even infants unaided. When my wife was still alive and had just begun the symptoms of the Great Plague, her body was turning black and bruised looking.
She was bleeding what seemed to be out of her skin. My children and I could smell her dying, which made it extremely difficult to be around her in her dying hour. My wife was decaying whilst still alive. When my first daughter Emily was experiencing her death I tried to drain her blood out to cleanse her body of sin and disease. After God’s will, I hung flowers, herbs and other perfumes to offset the repulsive smells coming from the blackened (hardly) corpses in the streets. So many people are deceased that there aren’t enough people to bury the dead. Lately the grave is the sea but then again wherever you die may be your grave. As I write this desperate plea, I can feel a boiling fever, my nose is beginning to bleed profusely and buboes are forming around my underarms. This is how I saw inevitable death with my whole family, it is my time. The community is dying without their last rights. Please end our torment and vagueness. Why were some spared and the rest not? What can survivors do to be christened? Is our God punishing us, and for what deed? When will God smile upon our flourishment again?