La Peste Noire dans les Abruzzes (1348–1350)

Résumé 0

In the historiography of the Black Death, Southern Italy remains terra incognita, even to this day. This paper intends to highlight the considerable relevance of the Chronicle of Aquila in the Abruzzi on this subject. Written by the humanist merchant Buccio di Ranallo in around 1360, the work is one of the first examples of the genre of epic urban chronicles in volgare (“ordinary” speech), which was to see such great success in the fifteenth century. It has more than 1,250 quatrains. Although it has been published in two complete critical editions, the work is considered extremely mediocre from a literary point of view, and has been completely ignored by historians. However, it has highly interesting data on the 1348 catastrophe and the various upheavals it produced in the economy, social behavior, and people’s attitudes. Buccio’s chronicle is certainly the richest Italian narrative source – including Boccaccio – on the Black Death.