The maritime trade of the Republic had brought great riches to the citizens, but contact with the East also brought the plague in its train, and in 1348 Ragusa, like the rest of Europe, was visited by the terrible scourge. It was probably introduced into the western world by the Tartars besieging Caffa in 1344, and although the town was saved, the relieving force caught the disease, which spread through Europe with lightning-like rapidity. The following document preserved in the book of wills in the Cathedral treasury at Ragusa, written by eye-witnesses, gives a vivid picture of the terror inspired by the fell scourge:— “Our Lord God sent a terrible judgment, unheard of in the whole world, both on Christians and on pagans, a mortality of men and still more of women, through an awful and incurable disease, which caused the spitting of blood and swellings on various parts of the body, so contagious that sons fled from their fathers and still more often fathers from their sons; all the art of Apocrates, Galen, and Avizena proved useless, for no art or science availeth against Divine judgment. This disease commenced at Ragusa on the 15th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1348, and lasted for six months, during which 120 persons or more died each day; of the (Grand) Council there died 110 nobles.”[170] According to Gelcich, the total number of deaths in the town ranged from 7000 to 10,000, including 160 nobles and 300 burghers; it is impossible to conjecture how many died in the territory. It made its appearance at the same time at Spalato, preceded, according to the legend, by an eclipse of the sun, so complete that the stars were visible by day, and by a drought so great that the dust remained suspended in huge clouds in mid air.[171] Ragnina, who wrote more than a century after the event, declares that the belief that the Jews had poisoned the wells was very prevalent, while others believed that the cause of the disease was a conjunction of three planets under Jupiter and Mars.[172] At this time no sanitary precautions were taken against further visitations, but large sums were collected to build the votive church of San Biagio.