Sicily

Siculis vero de hujusmodi pace nimium congaudentibus, & sub pace existentibus tranquilla Deum collaudantibus de tam immenso dono, quod antiqui Reges Siculi hactenus obtinere minime potuerant, pestis letifera fuit in insula Sicilie universaliter exorta, occasione quadam subscripta.

The Sicilians were overjoyed at this peace. Living at peace at last, they praised God for so great a gift, one the kings of Sicily before them had never been able to win. Then a deadly plague broke out all over the island of Sicily. This is how it happened.

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.

E nell’ultimo di questo tempo s’aggiunse alle nazioni del Mare maggiore, e alle ripe del Mare tirreno, nella Soria e Turchia, e in verso lo Egitto e la riviera del Mar rosso, e dalla parte settentrionale la Rossia e la Grecia, e l’Erminia e l’altre conseguenti provincie. E in quello tempo galee d’italiani si partirono del Mare maggiore, e della Soria e di Romania per fuggire la morte, e recare le loro mercatanzie in Italia: e’ non poterono cansare, che gran parte di loro non morisse in mare di quella infermità. E arrivati in Cicilia conversaro co’ paesani, e lasciarvi di loro malati, onde incontanente si cominciò quella pestilenzia ne’ Ciciliani. E venendo le dette galee a Pisa, e poi a Genova, per la conversazione di quegli uomini cominciò la mortalità ne’ detti luoghi, ma non generale. Poi conseguendo il tempo ordinato da Dio a’ paesi, la Cicilia tutta fu involta in questa mortale pestilenzia.

Toward the end of that time it reached the peoples of the Great Sea and the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea, in Syria and Turkey, toward Egypt and the coast of the Red Sea, and to the north Russia, Greece, Armenia, and the lands beyond. At that time Italian galleys left the Great Sea, Syria, and Romania to flee death and bring their goods to Italy. They could not keep a great part of their crews from dying of the sickness at sea. When they arrived in Sicily they mixed with the people there and left some of their sick behind, and at once the pestilence began among the Sicilians. When the galleys came to Pisa and then to Genoa, the mortality began in those places through contact with those men, but it did not become general. Then, when the time God had set for each country came, all Sicily was caught up in this deadly pestilence.