The spread of disease and trade went hand in hand, and no event illustrates this relationship better than the outbreak of bubonic plague in the mid-14th century, an event more commonly known today as the Black Death.
In a passage from his book titled The Decameron, Florence, Italy resident Giovani Boccaccio described the Black Death, which reached Florence in 1348:
It first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less . . .
From the two said parts of the body this deadly [bubo] soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the malady began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, then minute and numerous.
Historians and epidemiologists are confident that the Black Death originated in east-central Asia, which raises the question: How did the plague make it to Europe?
To understand how the plague spread, we need to understand how the disease was transmitted, along with the broader economic and political contexts that made its spread possible.
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