Calabria
The toe of mainland Italy, across the strait from Messina, to which many people of Messina fled the plague.
Today: Calabria, Italy
The Plague Comes to Messina and Catania
Anonymous of Catania, Sicilian History, printed in Rosario Gregorio’s Bibliotheca scriptorum (1791) · after April 1348 (events of October 1347 to April 1348)
Sed pro majori parte cives Messanam deserunt, alii in Calabriam, alii per diversas partes Sicilie, & specialiter in civitatem Catanie sunt dispersi. Sed quid profuit eis lapsus fuge, quia egritudo jam concepta & fixa eorum corpora comeabat? Qui fugientes, aliqui defecerunt in via, in campis, in maritimis, in mari, in casali Mascalarum, in silvis, in vallis, & diversis locis incongruis.
Most of the citizens deserted Messina. Some scattered into Calabria, others to different parts of Sicily, above all to the city of Catania. But what good was running away? The sickness had already taken hold and was eating at their bodies. Some fell dead as they fled, on the road, in the fields, on the shore, at sea, in the village of Mascali, in the woods and valleys, and in all sorts of wretched places.