Faith, Reason, and the Plague: A Tuscan Story of the Seventeenth Century

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Harvester Press, 1979 - Social Science - 113 pages
Very occasionally the work of a fine historian transcends its own detail to illuminate our entire perspective on the past. In this concisestudy Carlo Cipolla, one of the leading European scholars of today, uses the evidence of a small Tuscan town's experience of the plague to reveal new features of church-state relations in seventeenth-century Italy. The plague, an endemic nightmare in Renaissance Europe, struck Montelupo in 1630. It was fought by both civilian and religious authorities, the nature of their resistance exposing their divisions. Public health magistrates in Florence forcibly isolated the twon to reduce contagion. Clerical leaders organised a mass procession duringt which the town gates were broken down. The resulting enquiry provides Cipolla with his exceptionally rich source material. In vivid colloquial prose he recaptures the emotions, attitudes and behaviour of ordinary people in a remote coner of history. -- Jacket flap.

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Contents

I
75
Chapter VI
81
Appendices
87
Copyright

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