The Rise And Fall Of The Plague By Giovanni Boccaccio

In the mid-thirteenth century, an unknown, incomprehensible force took over Europe: it was said that the Angel of Death had come for a visit. Was this of Satan? Was the enemy once again wreaking havoc upon the people? Or was this the wrath of God punishing the guilty? What came was yet another mysterious plague wiping out millions of 12th Century Europe. As this fatal force grew, fear grew, and as fear grew, panic spread; from panic came abandonment, and from abandonment, came separation, isolation and even discrimination. As the death toll increased daily, no friend, no family, and almost no region of Europe was left untouched or unaffected by this force. Wiping out a large portion of European population, the Black Death isolated and separated
The Plague is popularly believed to have originated in Asia or “the orient” as referred to by Richard Hooker’s translation of The Decameron, originally written by Giovanni Boccaccio. One year after first reporting in Messina, the Plague reached London, England. The spread of the Plague followed Mediterranean shipping and trade routes beginning from Southeast Europe spreading across all of Europe towards Northwest Russia all within the time span of about four years. In his book, Boccaccio explained this “deadly pestilence” spread quickly and and tremendously, rarely stopping in one place, but continuously moving from one to another. The carriers of this disease were infected rats, fleas, and other animals commonly found travelling along cargo and imports at the time. These imports and exports would house the infected creatures and carry them quickly from one trade stop to the next, hence why the disease was able to spread quickly throughout Europe. Although the Plague spread quickly across Europe, not every place was directly hit. Because of this, the Black Death is often symbolized by arrows coming down from the Angel of Death, like that in the image the Plague by Giovanni Sercambi. The arrows represent the way in which the Plague hit many regions, but avoided others. There were areas and people who, by luck or the grace of God, managed to avoid it. As panic of the spreading of the Plague
First, the lymph nodes would begin to swell in the groin and armpit regions. These swollen lymph nodes, referred to as “gavoccioli”, would grow and grow, more and more appearing throughout the body, on the neck, everywhere, swelling up to the size of an apple on many occasions. Shortly after the presence of these “gavoccioli” or “buboes”, dark, livid lesions would begin to spread throughout the arms and legs. Once these appeared, death was eminent, and those who experienced these symptoms would have a few days to a week maximum left to live. Since physicians were scarce and a cure intangible, when one became sick with the Bubonic Plague their close friends and family typically abandoned them and left them to die. There was no hope in a cure, and therefore practically no hope but the grace of God to save those who came in contact with