Genova and the Plague – La Superba of 1656
An Invisible enemy challenged Genoa between 1656 and 1657. It was the Plague.
The historian Filippo Casoni described it as “ the greatest misfortune suffered by Genoa”. It was an epic disaster that hardly challenged the city. Between the end of June and the beginning of July 1657, the terrible second wave broke out. On average more than a thousand people per day died, about one person every two second! Thanks to the many letters and memories of the survivors we can reconstruct the phases of those infernal 70 weeks. Days marked by acts of heroism, but also by the madness that took possession of the Genoa’s inhabitants.
