“This disease,” says Giovanni Villani,[d] “was of such a nature that none survived its attack for three days; certain tumours appeared in the groins and under the arms; the patient then spit blood; and the priest that confessed him, and the neighbour who looked on him often took the malady, so that every sick creature was abandoned: no confession, no sacrament, no medicine, no attendance; yet the pope granted a pardon to every priest who administered the holy communion, or confessed, or visited and watched the dying man.” This was in 1347, and solemn processions and offerings were made for three days together to avert the pestilence from Florence; in December the price of bread again augmented, because Romagna had absorbed every bushel of grain from the Mugello district; Venice was empty and in want; Louis of Hungary’s invasion of Apulia, together with pestilence on the coast, prevented her customary supplies from Sicily and southern Italy. Guards were placed round the Florentine state and grain was once more purchased, so that the year 1348 came in with fear and hope, but some diminution of misery. All these sufferings had painfully prepared a way for heavier calamities, and they struck with killing force on a sickly, weak, and desponding people. Whether the great plague of 1348 fell with more fatal effects on Florence than other places may be doubtful; yet the descriptive pen of Boccaccio [j] has thrown a pall of immortality over this scene of universal desolation and of death.[f] BOCCACCIO’S ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE IN FLORENCE [Sidenote: [1348 A.D.]]