The end of the world

E io Agniolo di Tura, detto Grasso, sotterrai cinque miei figliuoli in una fossa con le mie mani; e così fecero molti altri il simile; e anco furon di quelli, che erano sì mal coperti, che' cani ne traevano, e mangiavano di molti corpi per la Città. E non sonavano Campane, e non si piangeva persona, fusse di che danno si volesse, che quasi ogni persona aspettava la morte; e per sì fatto modo andava la cosa, che la gente non credeva, che nissuno ne rimanesse, e molti huomini credevano, e dicevano, questo è fine Mondo.

And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried five of my children in one pit with my own hands. Many others did the same. Some bodies were covered so poorly that the dogs dragged them out and ate many corpses all over the city. No bells were rung. No one was mourned, whatever the loss, because almost everyone was waiting for death. Things went so far that people did not believe anyone would be left alive. Many men believed it, and said, “This is the end of the world.”

Cessante autem dicta epidemia, pestilentia et mortalitate, nupserunt viri qui remanserunt et mulieres ad invicem. Conceperunt uxores residuae per mundum ultra modum. Nulla sterilis efficiebatur; sed praegnantes hinc inde videbantur, et plures geminos pariebant, et aliquae tres infantes insimul vivos emittebant. Sed quod ultra modum admirationem facit, est quod dicti pueri nati post tempus illud mortalitatis supradictae et deinceps, dum ad aetatem dentium devenerunt, non nisi viginti dentes vel viginti duos in ore communiter habuerunt, cum ante dicta tempora homines de communi cursu triginta duos dentes sub et supra simul in mandibulis habuissent. Quid autem numerus iste dentium in post natis significet, multum miror; nisi dicatur, quod per talem et tantam mortalitatem hominum infinitorum, et successionem aliorum et reliquorum qui remanserant, mundus est quodammodo renovatus et saeculum, ut sic sit quaedam nova aetas.

When this epidemic, pestilence, and mortality had ended, the men and women who were left married one another. Everywhere the surviving wives conceived beyond measure. None was barren; pregnant women were seen everywhere. Many bore twins, and some gave birth to three living children at once. But here is what is beyond all wonder. The children born after that time of mortality, and from then on, when they reached the age for teeth, commonly had only twenty or twenty-two teeth in their mouths. Before then, people had normally had thirty-two teeth, upper and lower together. I wonder very much what this number of teeth in those born afterward means. Perhaps the death of so many countless people, and the coming of the others who were left, has in some way renewed the world and the age. Then this would be a kind of new age.