Apr 2
Where are our sweet friends now? Where are the beloved faces? Where are the agreeable words, where the soothing and pleasant conversation? What lightning bolt devoured them? What earthquake overturned them? What storm submerged them? What abyss swallowed them? Once we were all together, now we are quite alone.
—Francesco Petrarch, from Letters on Familiar Matters May 1349, excerpted and translated by John Aberth, The Back Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350, A Brief History with Documents (Bedford, 2005)