Problem
Boccaccio's description of the plague focuses on the physical symptoms and on the social, economic, and even psychological effects of the disease. What kind of a portrait of life emerges in his description? Can you infer from his description what life was like before the plague? How do people seem to be reacting to the plague? Is it given any meaning? Does Boccaccio's description give any indication that the Florentines of that time understood anything from the presence of this great epidemic? Did they, as more modern cultures did and do with AIDS and COVID, see evidence of divine displeasure in the illness? Does that impact the ways that they choose to act toward the afflicted? In short, what kind of portrait of the time can you read between the lines of this excerpt? How might you have interpreted Boccaccio's description before living through COVID versus how you are reading it now?