Not long after, in one town or another, individuals and whole families started to fall ill and die of strange, violent ailments with symptoms that most of the living had never seen before. Throughout the strip of territory crossed by the army, dead bodies were found in houses and by the roadside. Just as it is well known that the plague did not stop there, but went on to invade and depopulate a good part of Italy. The plague that the Health Tribunal had feared might enter the Milan area with the German troops really did enter, as is well known. The following excerpt begins with the descent into Northern Italy of an army of Landsknechts, German-speaking mercenaries, in the service of the Hapsburg Empire. The story culminates in the great plague of 1628-30, which ultimately took the lives of a quarter of the population of Northern Italy at the time. When the coronavirus broke out in Northern Italy in February, commentators reached immediately for the great historical novel, The Betrothed (1842), by Alessandro Manzoni, to describe the sense of panic gripping the country.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |