The Trials of Our Day: Historic Reflections on the Past, Present and Future

By Professor Alan Pascuzzi

a...pestilence...several years earlier had originated in the Orient, where it destroyed countless lives, scarcely resting in one place before it moved to the next, and turning westward its strength grew monstrously. No human wisdom or foresight had any value...the sick were barred from entering the city, and many instructions were given to preserve health...despite all this, ” at the beginning of the spring of that year, that horrible plague began with its dolorous effects in a most awe-inspiring manner, as I will tell you.

What reads as a summary of what has happened in the latter part of February and March of 2020 is actually an account of the beginning of the plague in 1348 (!) in the introduction of Boccaccio’s Decameron.

I have always made reference in my lectures to students to Boccaccio’s Decameron and the nature of why it was written. The book tells the story of a group of young people leaving Florence for the hills outside the city to escape the dangers of the disease. As part of a game, they each are challenged to tell stories to entertain each other and pass the time. I intentionally quoted from his introduction to demonstrate how the plague had a tremendous effect on humanity and in turn on art history.

Boccaccio’s description, however, was always simply a literary reference, distant and difficult to imagine - at least until now. Upon re-reading the introduction, I was amazed by how Boccaccio’s description accurately describes the current situation:

To cure these infirmities neither the advice of physicians nor the power of medicine appeared to have any value or profit; perhaps either the nature of the disease did not allow for any cure or the ignorance of the physicians (whose numbers, because men and women without any training in medicine invaded the profession, increased vastly) did not know how to cure it...

Another excerpt accurately describes what we are all experiencing:

One citizen avoided another, everybody neglected their neighbors and rarely or never visited their parents and relatives unless from a distance...

I also remembered coming across references to the plague in Luca Landucci’s A Florentine Diary. Landucci was an apothecary in Florence who wrote a diary of what happened each day in the city of Florence from 1450 to 1516. It is one of the most fascinating books ever written on Florence and a must-read for anyone who wants to know what it was like living in Renaissance Florence.

Landucci mentions ‘the disease’ many times in his entries but the most heartening is from the 5th December, 1496:

A case of plague was discovered, after there had not been one for some months. At this time the complaint of French boils had spread through Florence and the country around, and also to every city in Italy, and it lasted a long time. Anyone who tired to doctor them suffered severe pains in all the joints, and in the end they returned; so it was no use doing anything. Not many people died of this complaint, but they suffered much pain and annoyance.

How then do we learn from past events?

Boccaccio wrote of the suffering of the events of 1348 but after it was over, he wrote one of the most important pieces of literature in western culture. After the events of 1348 humanity bounced back, flourished and produced the beauties of the Renaissance which enrich the human experience even in the present day. Landucci makes reference to the resilience of the human spirit through the trials of events out of our control. Both Boccaccio and Landucci are testimony to the hope that this trying time will end and we will flourish again – just like they did.

The current events that are limiting to our lives will certainly pass. Like our parents and grandparents who bravely withstood the trials of similar trying events, we too will dress humanity’s wound and go forward. It is a time of internal fortitude, faith and hope for that day when we can all freely step outside, breathe deeply the fresh spring air and look to the future in the warm embrace of the sun.