As plague does not leave identifiable skeletal lesions on the bones of infected individuals, ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis is the only available method to confirm the presence of Y.
While contemporary historical texts describe buboes in Imola 2, no molecular evidence for the presence of the plague pathogen Yersinia pestis during these epidemics has been available thus far. Preceding typhus epidemics and famines in 16 are speculated to have weakened the population’s immune defense prior to the arrival of plague 1.įirst reports of an epidemic in Imola were recorded on the 29th of June 1630 2, when the disease reached the city from Bologna despite the implementation of dedicated quarantine and safety measures. Northern Italy was hit particularly heavily, with mortality rates ranging from 20 to 60% (see Fig. Throughout the Northern Italian plague epidemics of 1629–1631 and the Southern Italian plague epidemics of 1656–1657, a total estimated 20% of the Italian population was lost 4. In fact, the seventeenth century marks one of two periods of demographic regression for Italy, with the second being after the Black Death during the 1300s 4. In 1630 alone, 34 Italian cities were affected by the disease 3. The disease then proceeded to ravage through Northern and Central Italy 3. Shortly after, French troops also introduced plague to the Piedmont region 1. The plague epidemic started in Milan, where first cases of plague were reported in mid-October 1629. Imola was hit by a pestilence during the Italian Plague of 1629–1631, which had reached Northern Italy via soldiers engaged in the Thirty-Year War 1, 2. The city, which was formerly also known as Forum Cornelii during Antiquity, was founded around 82 BCE along the Via Emilia by the river Santerno and was an important urban centre during the Italian Renaissance. Imola is a city located in the Italian province of Bologna and the region Emilia-Romagna. Our multidisciplinary approach combining historical, osteological and genomic data provided a unique opportunity to reconstruct an in-depth picture of the last plague of Imola through the city's main lazaretto. Additionally, we studied a contemporaneous register, in which a friar recorded patient outcomes at the lazaretto during the last year of the epidemic. We screened 15 teeth for Yersinia pestis aDNA and were able to confirm the presence of plague in Imola via metagenomic analysis. The skeletons showed little evidence of physical trauma and were covered by multiple layers of lime, which is characteristic for epidemic mass mortality sites.
#ANNO 1701 MAP EDITOR CHIP FULL#
We analyzed the full skeletal assemblage of four mass graves (n = 133 individuals) at the Lazaretto dell’Osservanza, which date back to the outbreak of 1630–1632 in Imola and evaluated our results by integrating new archival sources. While accounts on plague during the early 1630s in Florence and Milan are frequent, much less is known about the city of Imola. The plague of 1630–1632 was one of the deadliest plague epidemics to ever hit Northern Italy, and for many of the affected regions, it was also the last.
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