‘A plague o’ both your houses’–William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 1“…when into the distinguished city of Florence, more noble than any other Italian city, there came the deadly pestilence. It started in the East, either because of the influence of the heavenly bodies or because of God’s just wrath as a punishment to mortals for our wicked deeds, and it killed an infinite number of people. Without pause it spread from one place and it stretched its miserable length over the West.