180 on the existence of pirates at Capri.] Yet even these injuries may be reckoned light, when we consider what Italy had suffered between 1494 and 1527 from French, Spanish, German and Swiss troops in combat on her soil.

The pestilences of the Middle Ages notably the Black Death of 1348, of which Boccaccio has left an immortal description, exceeded in virulence those which depopulated Italian cities during the period of my history.

But plagues continued to be frequent; and some of these are so memorable that they require to be particularly noticed.

At Venice in 1575-77, a total of about 50,000 persons perished; and in 1630-31, 46,490 were carried off within a space of sixteen months in the city, while the number of those who died at large in the lagoons amounted to 94,235.[233] On these two occasions the Venetians commemorated their deliverance by the erection of the Redentore and S.Maria della Salute, churches which now form principal ornaments of the Giudecca and the Grand Canal.

Milan was devastated at the same periods by plagues, of which we have detailed accounts in the dispatches of resident Venetian envoys.[234] The mortality in the second of these visitations was terrible.