[28] _Ibid._ xv, 123. At this period the population at Siena was more than 100,000, and it had been determined to proceed with the building of the vast Cathedral according to the designs of Lando Orefice. The work was hardly undertaken when the plague of 1348 broke out in the city. The operations were suspended, and the money which had been collected for the purpose was devoted to necessary public works (G. Gigli, _Diario Sanese_, ii, 428). [29] Muratori, _Scriptores_ xv, 653. [30] _Ibid._, 902. [31] _Ibid._, xvi, 286. [32] A. Pezzana, _Storia della città di Parma_, vol. i, p. 12. [33] _Historiæ Parmensis Fragmenta_, in Muratori, _Scriptores_, xii, 746. [34] T. Michelet, _Histoire de France_, iv, p. 238. [35] A. Phillippe, _Histoire de la Peste Noire_ (Paris, 1853), p. 103. [36] _Epistolæ Familiares_ (Ed. 1601), lib. viii, pp. 290-303. [37] Muratori, _Scriptores_, xii, 926. [38] See his article _La Medicina in Venezia nel 1300_ in _Archivio Veneto_, tom. xxv, p. 361, _seqq._ [39] p. 369. [40] _Ibid._, 377. [41] _Ibid._ [42] _Ibid._, p. 378. [43] _Ibid._, p. 379. [44] Roncioni, _Istorie Pisane_ in _Archivio Storico Italiano_, iv, 808. [45] _Chronicon Pragense_, ed. Loserth in _Fontes rerum Austriacarum_, _Scriptores_, vol. i, p. 395. [p034] CHAPTER III. PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE. Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy it obtained a foothold in the South of France. According to a contemporary account, written at Avignon in 1348, the disease was brought into Marseilles by one of the three Genoese ships, which had been compelled to leave the port of Genoa when the inhabitants discovered that by their means the dreaded plague had already commenced its ravages in their city. It would consequently appear most likely that the mortality began in Marseilles somewhere about the first days of January, 1348, although one account places the commencement of the sickness as early as All Saints' Day (November 1), 1347.[46] The number of deaths in this great southern port of France fully equalled that of the populous cities of Italy. In a month the sickness is said to have carried off 57,000 of the inhabitants of Marseilles and its neighbourhood.[47] One chronicle says that "the Bishop, with the entire chapter of the cathedral, and nearly all the friars, Preachers and Minorites, together with two-thirds of the inhabitants, perished" at this time; and adds that upon the sea might be seen ships, laden with merchandise, driven about hither and thither by the waves, the steersman and every sailor having been carried off by the disease.[48] Another, speaking of Marseilles after the pestilence had passed, says that "so many died that it [p035] remained like an uninhabited place."[49] It is of interest to record that amongst the survivors there was an English doctor, William Grisant, of Merton College, Oxford. He had studied medicine at the then celebrated school of Montpellier, and was in