They visited the province of Lecco, the Valsassina, the shores of Lake Como, and the districts of Monte di Brianza and Gera d’Adda. By the time they arrived, the disease was already so widespread that there was no need to search for proof. Still the Tribunal took no decisions.Īs more and more reports of death arrived from other areas, however, two delegates were dispatched to view and review the situation: Alessandro Tadino (Settala’s lieutenant), and an auditor from the Tribunal. On October 20, he reported to the Health Tribunal that the contagion had unquestionably broken out in Chiuso (the last village in the Lecco territory, bordering on the province of Bergamo).

Now, harboring grave suspicions, he was on the alert for information. The chief medical officer, Lodovico Settala, had not only witnessed the earlier plague but had also been one of the most active, intrepid, and-despite his youth-reputable doctors. There were some people, however, to whom they were not new: the few who still remembered the plague that, fifty-three years earlier, had devastated much of Italy, especially in the Milan area, where it was and still is known as the San Carlo Plague. Not long after, in one town or another, individuals and whole families started to fall ill and die of strange, violent ailments with symptoms that most of the living had never seen before. Throughout the strip of territory crossed by the army, dead bodies were found in houses and by the roadside. Just as it is well known that the plague did not stop there, but went on to invade and depopulate a good part of Italy. The plague that the Health Tribunal had feared might enter the Milan area with the German troops really did enter, as is well known. The following excerpt begins with the descent into Northern Italy of an army of Landsknechts, German-speaking mercenaries, in the service of the Hapsburg Empire. The story culminates in the great plague of 1628-30, which ultimately took the lives of a quarter of the population of Northern Italy at the time. When the coronavirus broke out in Northern Italy in February, commentators reached immediately for the great historical novel, The Betrothed (1842), by Alessandro Manzoni, to describe the sense of panic gripping the country.

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni