Superabundance of agricultural produce was looked for because of the scarcity of mouths, and the contrary happened; for everything fell short and long continued so, in some countries even to the most biting famine; manufactures of almost all kinds, clothes, everything necessary for the human body, were in like manner expected to appear spontaneously and in profusion; but the reverse took place; most sorts of manufactured goods soon doubled their former cost, and all labour brought twice the money that it fetched before the pestilence; disputes, lawsuits, contests, disturbances of every class sprouted like nettles throughout the land, and Florence long and severely felt their evil consequences. Immense treasures too had been willed away by dying men to public charities, or in trust to corporate bodies for the poor; some directly, others after several successions, all now swept off by exterminating plague; amongst others there was left to the corporation of Orto-san-Michele alone the vast inheritance of 350,000 florins, a sum equal to one year’s revenue of the commonwealth. This was in trust for the poor; but there were no poor, no paupers, no destitution; death had murdered poverty. Money, houses, and other valuables abounded; the directors felt their hands at liberty, their conscience easy; and unbounded peculation was the result; the elections were kept close amongst themselves; they re-elected each other; power and profit moved round in a circle undisturbed by any external influence for three long years, until at last the angry voice of Florence destroyed this nefarious and disgraceful system. In a similar manner, but with better management, 25,000 florins were left to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, and an equal sum to the new and useful company of “Misericordia”; so that the city most abounded in charitable resources at the very time when poverty was for the moment annihilated. Many corrective laws for the various existing evils were promulgated by those magistrates who still retained their discretion and now resumed their power; one of these was to exonerate minors and married women from any legal responsibility in affairs of pecuniary and other property, unless with the consent of their relatives or guardians declared before a judge in the court of the above corporation of Orto-san-Michele, which had _ex-officio_ their guardianship. At the same period, and no less to encourage population by the residence of students than for the dignity of Florence, a public college was founded for the first time, and able professors were appointed to the whole range of science, besides civil and canon law and dogmatic theology.