January, 1349 AD
By the fourth consecutive week of January, 1349, no deaths were reported to the Magistrate. A declaration, issued and signed jointly by Pope Clément V1 and the Justice, declared the plague had expired. The original version of the document, together with the Magistrate"s extensive, methodical lists of the deceased, was deposited, for posterity, in the papal library of the Pope"s Palace. Guards posted copies in every square, street corner and public building. Gradually, the town regained the prosperity and contentedness it had enjoyed before the disease visited it. Householders scrubbed their doors clean of the red cross, leaving no indication of the horror that had unfolded within. However, they were nervous: the thought that it might return, without warning, just as it ha
