In 1347, galleys returning from the Near East brought bubonic plague to the major Italian port cities. When Genoa was alerted to the peril, the first infected galleys to arrive “were driven from the port by burning arrows and divers engines of war.”54 But it was too late. Within a year the Black Death had spread along the trade routes all across Europe. 55 By the time it ended in 1350, a third of the population—about 30 million people—had died. This was a terrible human tragedy, but ironically, its economic and political impact was largely positive, and the survivors and their children lived
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