Note 10 — THE GREAT PESTILENCE. CHAPTER I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC.

The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called Ystoria de morbo seu mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348, was first printed by Henschel, in Haeser's Archiv für gesammte Medicin (Jena) ii, 26–59. The editor claims that De' Mussi was actually present at Caffa during the Tartar siege, and came to Europe in the plague-stricken ships which conveyed the infection to Italy. Signor Tononi, who in 1884 reprinted the Ystoria in the Giornale Ligustico (Genoa) vol. x (1883), p. 139 seqq., has proved by the acts of the notaries of Piacenza that De' Mussi never quitted the city at this time, and his realistic narrative must have been consequently derived from the accounts of others. From the same source Tononi has shown that De' Mussi acted as notary between A.D. 1300 and 1356, and was consequently born probably somewhere about 1280. He died in the first half of the year 1356.