Infectious diseases

Name: Italian plague

Year: 1629-1631

Dead: c.ca 1000000

The Italian plague mentioned in Manzoni’s “Promessi Sposi” is one of the many plague epidemics (Yersinia pestis) that have occurred in Europe.

Manzoni in his novel accurately describes how it was transported by lansquenets, ferocious mercenaries of the Holy Roman Empire during their invasion of northern Italy in 1630.

When the emergency broke out in the major cities, people began to flee to the countryside (facilitated by the almost absence of controls), obtaining the effect of also infecting the agricultural areas.

Manzoni’s accuracy is also reflected in the description of the symptoms, which we can find in the description made when Don Rodrigo discovers the first black “ponfo” on his body. In fact, it differs from other pests in provoking necrosis of the lymphatic system, causing the appearance of painful black coats mainly on the neck, armpits and genitals.

In the “History of the Infamous Column” we can then find how the ignorant doctors and the populace were full of superstition, to the point of blaming the figure of the ouncer (also present in the Promessi Sposi), capable of extending the infection with evil ointments, instead of finding the true vector of the disease, that is the flea of ​​the rats proliferating in the dilapidated wooden houses of the cities.

Source: web