Italian City-States:

Government and Communal Responses to the Black Death

Quincy Standage
History 255: The Black Death
Professor Shelley Wolbrink
May 1, 2018
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Early reports created by chroniclers describe the Black Death in Italy as a time of panic

and despair. Chroniclers often portray the plague as a time when no help was available, and the

rate of death was extreme. However, new research asserts that Italian city-states responded

aggressively to the plague by introducing numerous pieces of legislation to combat the spread of

the Black Death.1 The individual city-states chose different methods of regulation during the

plague due to the difference in governments between the states. This legislation included

regulations on burial and funeral practices, containment, sanitation, the institution of city health

councils, and fines for breaking the regulations. The level of government intervention in the

prevention and containment of the plague is critical to the historical context surrounding the

plague. While traditional Italian governments focused on property rights and the protection of

valuables for the dead, there is considerable evidence of laws affecting the living including

sanitation rules such as the encouragement of individuals to clean up the streets by collecting

trash and burning items of the infected. In the Italian city of Lucca, the government decided to

commission a new hospital to address the influx of plague patients.2 This attempt to prevent the

spread of the plague asserts a basic knowledge of contagion among the Italian city-state

governments. The idea of contagion plays a significant factor in the government’s responsibility

to stop the spread of the plague for the people. By limiting the goods used in funerals and

attempting to regulate commerce, the government made a deliberate attempt to quell the rising

inflation of burial and funeral goods.3 This inflation created a large divide between funerals for

individuals of different societal classes. The Italian city-state governments employed

interventionist policies and regulations to protect the citizens from the spread of the plague.

1
Shona Kelly Wray, Communities in Crisis: Bologna during the Black Death (Boston: Brill, 2009), 149-150.
2
Wray, Communities, 149-150.
3
Marchione di Coppo Stefani, “The Florentine Chronicle,” University of Virginia.
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/marchione.html
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Italian city-state governments were active in generating policy and public political

participation. Italian city-states were equipped with councils to help create informed decisions on

communal issues. Daniel Waley demonstrates that “it was certainly not rare for such a council to

include more than 600 members.”4 The large councils grew into the responsibility of making

decisions for the city-state. This power led to regulations on the councils including “councils

could only reach decisions if a quorum was present – very often two-thirds of the members.”5

The establishment of councils in city-states allowed for a broader view of opinions in

government leading towards a democracy. The councils stepped into the role of taking care of

regulating and enforcing sanitation legislation pertaining to the plague. This increased amount of

democratic values allowed for city states to establish and enforce regulations on sanitation.

Government intervention was widely used in Italy as a form of assumed control over the

spread of the plague. Government intervention can be seen in the establishment of city health

councils or regulations established to encourage individuals to keep personal establishments and

city streets clean. Italian city-states including Florence and Pistoia are known to have established

statewide sanitation laws prior to the outbreak of the plague. This claim promotes the idea of

government in public health affairs prior to the Black Death. The idea of government as a vessel

to control contagion is asserted by scholars including Ann Carmichael and Shona Wray. Ann

Carmichael argues that Florence was a step ahead of the plague and had superior sanitation laws.

In Florence, Carmichael emphasizes, “Florence possessed a considerable body of sanitation

legislation, and much of it seems to have originated in the thirteenth century.”6 Different Italian

city-state governments often came to use similar regulations to stop the spread of the plague.

4
Daniel Waley and Trevor Dean, The Italian City-Republics (Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited, 2010), 36.
5
Daniel Waley and Trevor Dean, City-Republics, 37.
6
Ann Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
96.
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Florence and Pistoia imposed similar regulations on butchers including specific guidelines for

the waste created from pigs and other livestock. Carmichael recounts that in Florence the waste

placed in the river was heavily regulated7. Whereas, Wray demonstrates that in Pistoia butchers

were regulated and tanners were not allowed in the city limits to prevent the spread of disease.8

Wray presents the argument that the city-states of Bologna and Tuscany were best prepared for

the plague due to longstanding government intervention in sanitation. This is demonstrated by

the argument that “during the epidemic governments merely turned to laws on public hygiene

that had been affirmed and reaffirmed in multiple statutory redactions since the thirteenth

century.”9 This deliberate intervention by the Italian governments demonstrates a focus on

interventionist policies on the plague.

Sanitation and containment were critical measures taken by the Italian governments

including protocols for street cleaning, burning possessions of the ill, restrictions on butchers and

tanners, and the restriction on who could enter the gates. City-states including Florence and

Bologna were prepared for the Black Death before it occurred by having sanitation regulations in

place prior to the mass spread of the plague in 1348. In Florence, scholar John Henderson claims

that “the 1325 Statutes prohibited within the city walls the conduct of trades which produced

unpleasant smells, such as the treating of animal fur and the slaughtering of animals in public

places.”10 Henderson continues to argue this by comparing the similar codes of Pistoia which

included the legislation against the butchering of animals in city centers and the banning of

animals. Legislation for the containment of butchering is common among Italian city-states. The

fundamental belief that certain animals or activities were “unclean” or impure led to the banning
7
Carmichael, Plague and the Poor, 96-97.
8
Shona Kelly Wray, Communities and Crisis: Bologna During the Black Death (Boston: Brill, 2009), 149.
9
Wray, Communities, 151.
10
John Henderson, The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses (Leicester: Leicester
University Press, 1992), 143.
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of certain activities for public health. While butchering is largely found in legislation, Henderson

and Wray assert that governments regulated many different forms of trade. In Florence, during

the plague prostitutes were banned from the city limits. Wray stresses that the government acted

upon “the general belief held by doctors and laymen alike that whatever the physical cause of the

epidemic the ultimate cause was divine anger over human sin.”11 This demonstrates that the

government was involved in not only the physical sanitation of the city but an attempt to cleanse

“sinful” practices, including prostitution, from the city.

On May 2nd 1348, the Italian city of Pistoia created a large set of regulations that attempts to

govern funeral and burial practices. The Pistoia ordinances written by A. Chiappelli establish

specific regulations in the realm of burial and funeral practices. In this primary source it is stated

that the dead must be sealed in wooden boxes before being moved around the city.12 Once the

dead are moved to the church it is required that the body stay in the same box originally packed

in, if violated a fine of 50 pence is applied.13 Another ordinance enforced by officials in Pistoia is

that “to avoid the foul stench which comes from dead bodies each grave shall be dug two and a

half armslength deep.”14 This regulation demonstrates the government’s role in the regulation of

burial which emphasizes control over religion, a critical part of individuals lives in the middle

ages. Social class also played a role in government intervention in burial practices. In Pistoia,

individuals from higher social classes were allowed to have larger funeral processions than those

of a lower class.15 To avoid contagion at funerals in Pistoia, the government asserted “any person

attending a funeral shall not accompany the corpse or its kinsmen further than the door of the

11
Wray, Communities and Crisis, 150.
12
Rosemary Horrox, ed., “Ordinances Against the Spread of Plague, Pistoia, 1348” (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1994), 196.
13
Horrox, ed., “Ordinances,” 196.
14
Horrox, ed., “Ordinances,” 196.
15
Ann Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 1986), 109.
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church where the burial is to take place or go back to the house of the deceased.”16 This

regulation demonstrates an awareness of contagion of the ill person’s belongings and attempts to

protect the family and friends of the deceased. These regulations created in 1348 demonstrate the

government’s ability to intervene in the spread of the plague.

The governments of Florence, Siena, and Venice established city health councils in an

attempt to create and enforce sanitation regulations. Due to the awareness of contagion, in 1348,

the city-states of Florence and Venice also passed similar regulations to cut down on burial

expenses by stating “Pisans and Genoese were prohibited entrance, cloth of the infected was to

be burned or thrown in the Arno.”17 Marchione di Coppo Stefani, a chronicler during the 1370s-

1380s, demonstrates that in Florence “a pound of wax would have gone up more than a florin if

there had not been a stop put [by the communal government] to the vain ostentation that the

Florentines always make [over funerals].”18 The level of government intervention was different

city by city. The city health councils established in Venice and Siena had three public health

officials whereas Florence established eight.19 John Henderson argues that “the size of the

commission varied from one city to another, but this reflected administrative customs rather than

the size of population.”20 These city health councils were responsible for surveying the citywide

situation and enforcing the regulations established by the government. In Venice “emphasis was

placed on cleaning impurities and corruption.”21 Henderson argues that Florence had a similar

establishment as the government moved to improve sanitation in the city.22 The government of

16
Horrox, ed., “Ordinances,” 197.
17
Shona Kelly Wray, Communities and Crisis: Bologna During the Black Death (Leiden, 2009), 150.
18
Marchione di Coppo Stefani, “The Florentine Chronicle” (Virginia, University of Virginia),
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/marchione.html.
19
John Henderson, The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses, (London, 1992), 142-143.
20
Henderson, Medical and Communal Responses, 142.
21
Henderson, Medical and Communal Responses, 143.
22
Henderson, Medical and Communal Responses, 143.
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Bologna also has a similar style of sanitation laws that were enforced by officials since 1245.

These regulations include “that each house should have at least one lavatory, it was forbidden to

throw rubbish into the streets, and the inhabitants of each street were required to keep clean the

ditch that ran down its centre.”23 The city health councils were critical to the wellbeing of the

state by asserting regulations set by the city-state for the sanitation and health of the city.

Government intervention in the plague through fines is demonstrated in the Italian city-states

of Florence, Siena, and Pistoia. Fines were one method of punishment for breaking plague

regulations. In Florence, there was a 500 lire fine for bringing individuals from Genoa or Pisa

into the city. This fine was used a deterrent against the spread of the plague through human to

human contagion. The city-state of Milan followed with a similar rule shown in a decree from

Bernabó Visconti that states “we wish that each person who displays a swelling or tumour shall

immediately leave the city.”24 Pistoia followed with a similar fine that stated “no citizen or

resident of Pistoia […] shall dare or presume to go to Pisa or Lucca; and no one shall come to

Pistoia from those places; penalty 500 pence.”25 The regulations of Pistoia continue on to state

that guards are not to let individuals into the city who are traveling from Pisa or Lucca due to a

fear of contagion. However, in Pistoia the government granted special travel permits to

individuals who have a case of “merit.”26 These regulations demonstrate the government’s role in

the protection of the city and the attempt to keep order in society. In Pistoia, an individual was

fined for not burning the cloth that belonged to plague ridden individuals. The fine was 200

pence if the cloth was not immediately brought to the public piazza to be burned. These fines are

23
Henderson, Medical and Communal Responses, 143.
24
Horrox, ed., “Plague Regualtions of Bernabó Visconti, Lord of Milan, 1374” (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1994), 203.
25
Horrox, ed., “Ordinances Against the Spread of Plague, Pistoia, 1348,” 195.
26
Horrox, ed., “Ordinances Against the Spread of Plague, Pistoia, 1348,” 195.
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examples of government regulation and intervention to stop contagion by punishing citizens for

not following the sanitation protocols.

The Italian city-state governments responded to the plague by reinforcing regulations or

passing new legislation. These regulations were pathbreaking because it demonstrates a

knowledge of contagion and promoted sanitation practices. While some governments were

forced to pass regulations when the Black Death began, other city-states including Bologna and

Florence already had practices in place from the thirteenth century. The practice of sanitation

enforced by the city-state governments promotes an interventionist approach to containing the

spread of the plague.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Horrox, Rosemary. “Ordinances Against the Spread of Plague, Pistoia, 1348.” In The Black

Death, translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox, 194-203. Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1994.

Horrox, Rosemary. “Plague Regulations of Bernabò Visconti, Lord of Milan, 1374.” In

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The Black Death, translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox, 203. Manchester:

Manchester University Press, 1994.

Stefani, Marchione di Coppo. “The Florentine Chronicle.” University of Virginia.

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/osheim/marchione.html

Secondary Sources:

Carmichael, Ann G. "Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth-Century Milan.”

Renaissance Quarterly 44, no.2 (1991): 213-56

Carmichael, Ann G. Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 1986.

Cohn, Samuel. "After the Black Death: Labour Legislation and Attitudes Towards Labour in

Late-Medieval Western Europe." The Economic History Review, New Series, 60, no. 3

(2007): 457-85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4502106.

Henderson, John. “The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses.” Death In

Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, 100-1600, 136-150. London:

Leicester University Press, 1992.

Waley, Daniel, and Trevor Dean. The Italian City-Republics. Harlow: Pearson Education

Limited, 2010.

Wray, Shona K. Communities and Crisis: Bologna During the Black Death. Leiden: Koninklijke

Brill, 2009.