Fiction:The Betrothed' by Alessandro Manzoni
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Loading... - Nicole Kappas
- 11 Oct 2022
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When the bubonic plague reappeared in Milan in 1629, Alessandro Manzoni wrote in the historical novel “The Betrothed,” public-health officials found that their warnings were either ignored or derided. Their recommendation that passing soldiers, likely carriers of the disease, be kept separate from the public went unheeded, as did their urgings against official city gatherings. The government was preoccupied with war and the people resented restrictions on their lives. Even as evidence of the plague became incontrovertible, doctors continued to diagnose alternate illnesses and peddle quack remedies. Soon the masses were possessed by a “notorious collective delirium” that blamed the mounting death toll on a shadowy cabal of poisoners. When the plague finally abated, 35% of all Italians had died; in Milan, the population had been reduced by almost half.
