d mostly without any fever or violent symptoms. And
this pestilence was of so much greater extent that by merely
communicating with the sick the well were attacked, just as
fire spreads to dry or oiled matter which approaches it....
Of the common people, and perhaps in great part of the middle
classes, the situation was far more miserable, as they,
either through hope of escaping the contagion or poverty,
mostly kept to their houses and sickened by thousands a day,
and not being aided or attended in any respect, almost
without exception died. And many there were who ended their
lives in the public streets by day or night, and many who,
dying in their houses, were only discovered by the stench of
their dead bodies; and of these and others that died
everywhere the city was full. These were mainly disposed of
in the same way by their neighbors, moved more by the fear
that the corruption of the dead bodies should harm them than
by any charity for the deceased. They by themselves or with
the aid of bearers, when they could find any, dragged out of
their houses the bodies of those who had died, and laid them
before the doors, where, especially in the morning, whoever
went about the streets could have seen them without
number,--even to that point had matters come that no more was
thought of men dying than we think of goats; more than a
hundred thousand human beings are believed to have been taken
from life within the walls of Florence, which before the
mortal pestilence were not believed to have contained so many
souls. Oh! how many great palaces, how many beautiful houses,
how many noble dwellings, once full of domestics, of
gentlemen and ladies, became empty even to the last servant!
How many historical families, how many immense estates, what
prodigious riches remained without heirs! How many brave men,
how many beautiful women, how many gay youths whom not only
we, but Galen, Hippocrates, or Esculapius would have
pronounced in excellent health, in the morning dined with
their relatives, companions and friends, and the coming night
supped with those who had passed away."

The ten companions, meeting in the church of S. Maria Novella, seven
ladies and three gentlemen, agree to escape this doom, and, repairing to
one of the deserted villas in the neigh