This is a preview of the content in our Venice Art & Culture app. Get the app to:
  • Read offline
  • Remove ads
  • Access all content
  • Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
  • Build a list of your own favourites
  • Search the contents with full-text search functionality
  • ... and more!
iOS App Store Google Play

The Black Death

Venice in 1348

Plague doctor mask

If you think times are bad now, have a look at the 14th century in Europe. Things were bad all over, but in Italy they were so rotten that historians speak of a collective death wish in the 1340s.

Calamities of every kind befell the peninsula – earthquakes, floods and some of the worst weather on record; wars raged everywhere (Venice was locked in its death struggle with Genoa) and upheavals and disorder were a constant threat. Bankruptcies wrecked the economy; in 1346–7 the crops were so poor that thousands of people died of starvation. Even the wine went off. The Italians were exhausted, and resigned to disaster.

As if on cue, the worst epidemic of all, the Black Death, arrived on the scene in October 1347 – brought from the Crimea on Venetian galleys (though the Venetians blame it on the Genoese).

As usual Venice suffered the most: as the densely populated chief port of entry from the East, the city had a dire record of 70 major epidemics in 700 years. No wonder the Venetians lived so intensely, when life itself was so precarious.

Read the full content in the app
iOS App Store Google Play

History and Anecdotes

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Images by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls, PD art