In Erfurt, after the churchyards were
filled, 12,000 corpses were thrown into eleven great pits; and the
like might, more or less exactly, be stated with respect to all
the larger cities. Funeral ceremonies, the last consolation of
the survivors, were everywhere impracticable.
In all Germany, according to a probable calculation, there seem to
have died only 1,244,434 inhabitants; this country, however, was
more spared than others: Italy, on the contrary, was most
severely visited. It is said to have lost half its inhabitants;
and this account is rendered credible from the immense losses of
individual cities and provinces: for in Sardinia and Corsica,
according to the account of the distinguished Florentine, John
Villani, who was himself carried off by the Black Plague, scarcely
a third part of the population remained alive; and it is related
of the Venetians, that they engaged ships at a high rate to
retreat to the islands; so that after the plague had carried off
three-fourths of her inhabitants, that proud city was left forlorn
and desolate. In Padua, after the cessation of the plague, two-
thirds of the inhabitants were wanting; and in Florence it was
prohibited to publish the numbers of dead, and to toll the bells
at their funerals, in order that the living might not abandon
themselves to despair.
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