MDT Ep. 80: Concerning Boccaccio's Description of the Plague

03/26/20 • 50 min

We return at last for our first episode of 2020 in the midst of the covid-19 global pandemic. As such, our text for today is the famous description of the bubonic plague as it appeared in Florence in 1348 with which Boccaccio frames his tale collection, the Decameron. Today's Text Boccaccio, Giovanni. Stories of Boccaccio (The Decameron). Translated by Léopold Flameng, G. Barrie, 1881. Google Books. References Keys, Thomas E. “The Plague in Literature.” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, vol. 32, 1944, pp. 35–56. europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC194297&blobtype=pdf. Kowalski, Todd J., and William A. Agger. "Art Supports New Plague Science." Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 48, no. 1, Jan. 2009, pp. 137-138. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40309557. Marafiotio, Martin. "Post-Decameron Plague Treatises and the Boccaccian Innovation of Narrative Prophylaxis." Annali d'Italianistica, vol. 23, 2005, pp. 69-87. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24009628. Martin, Paul M.V., and Estelle Martin-Granel. "2,500-Year Evolution of the Term Epidemic." Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 976-980, doi:10.3201/eid1206.051263. "Mortality Frequency Measures." Centers for Disease Control, Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice, 3rd ed., 12 May 2012, www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section3.html. "Plague." Centers for Disease Control, 19 Nov. 2019, www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html.

Previous Episode

MDT Ep. 79: Concerning Cursed Christmas Carolers and an Unlikely Bishop

This Christmas Eve episode, we return to the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury, to learn hear some legends of Saxony, including some overly boisterous Christmas revelers cursed to continue their revels for a whole year without rest. Today's Text: William of Malmesbury. Chronicle of the Kings of England. Edited by J.A. Giles, translated by John Sharpe and J.A. Giles, George Bell & Sons, 1895. References Hecker, J.F.C. The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Translated by B.G. Babington, 3rd ed., Trübner & Co., 1859. McDougall, Sara. "Bastard Priests: Illegitimacy and Ordination in Medieval Europe." Speculum, vol. 94, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 138-172. Thomas, Edith M. "The Christmas Dancers: A Legend of Saxony." The Century, vol. 59, no. 2, Dec. 1899, pp. 165-173.

Next Episode

MDT Ep. 81: Concerning More Descriptions of the Plague

As life under quarantine begins to enter a new phase, we continue our survey of plague texts, with a grab-bag of selections ranging from Petrarch baring his soul to a surgeon listing failed remedies to some Paris professors issuing pandemic guidelines to keep the country safe, which include by no means consuming olive oil. Today's Texts * Capgrave, John. The Chronicle of England. Edited by Francis Charles Hingeston, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858. Google Books. * Dobson, Susanna, translator. The Life of Petrarch. Collected from Memoires pour la vie de Petrarch by Jacques-Francois-Paul-Aldonce De Sade, vol. 2, 7th ed., W. Wilson, 1807. Google Books. * Guy de Chauliac, Grand Chirurgie. "Description of the Plague." Tr. by Anna M. Campbell. Reprinted from Campbell, The Black Death and Men of Learning, pp. 2-3, 1931. * Guy de Chauliac, Grand Chirurgie. "Description of the Plague." Tr. by William A. Guy. Public Health: A Popular Introduction to Sanitary Science, Henry Renshaw, 1870, pp. 48-50. Google Books. * Petrarch, "Letter to Gherard, May 1349." Translated by Francis Aidan Gasquet in The Black Death of 1348 and 1349, 2nd ed., George Bell and Sons, 1908, pp. 33-34. Google Books. * "Statement of the Faculty of the College of Physicians of Paris." In The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, by J.F.C. Hecker, translated by B.G. Babington, 3rd ed., Trübner & Co., 1859, pp. 47-49. Google Books.