Reading Response One: The Florentine Chronicle
Amelia Aptheker
September 3, 14

The Florentine Chronicle written by Marchione di Coppo Stefani is a primary source of the state of disaster that was the Black Death. It arrived in Europe in October 1347. It was the start of a pandemic that ended with a death toll that is estimated at a peak of 200 million people. Stefani who was a historian but also a salesman and politician wrote this chronicle out of his passion for the severity of the event. His writing explains in common terms of the time, the story of the Black Plague, how it came and went but also focuses on the fear the people of Florence went through.
The pandemic started with a trade route in what is now Italy. Marco Polo established these trade routes so that people would be able to travel safely and efficiently. That was all good and well until the plague first became apparent in Asia and those goods being traded from Asia to Italy were infectious without the peoples knowledge. When those goods were …show more content…
Goods stopped flowing when word was out about the plagues origin. Servants and the Basmati who lived in serving and carrying the dead were charging their highest prices for their services and many became rich. Things like wool, sugar and wax skyrocketed in price for different reasons all having to do with the plague. Wool because it was usually worn as a sign of mourning and worn by the rich, sugar because the sick people mostly ate confections and wax, which was used for candles in funerals. There were restrictions on the amount of candles you could use because of the scarcity of the wax. Stefani makes this clear when he writes “This mortality enriched apothecaries, doctors, poultry vendors, beccamorti, and greengrocers who sold of poultices of mallow, nettles, mercury and other herbs necessary to draw off the infirmity. And it was those who made these poultices who made a lot of