La peste di Milano del 1630

This listening experience brings a seventeenth‑century chronicle of Milan’s devastating 1630 plague to life. Compiled by the city’s sixty decurions and drawn from official annals, the text was first rendered into Italian in the 1840s, preserving the voice of contemporary magistrates, clergy, and citizens. The narrator sets the scene against a backdrop of Spanish domination, economic decline, and a tangled web of overlapping authorities.

The work goes beyond statistics, describing how fear, charity, and religious fervor intertwined as the city struggled to contain the contagion. Readers hear vivid accounts of street closures, makeshift infirmaries, and the relentless burden placed on civic institutions that were already at odds with each other. Introductory notes and scholarly commentary help orient modern listeners, highlighting why the 1630 epidemic left a cultural imprint that still resonates in Milan’s collective memory.