[6] Due to heavy rains in the autumn and winter of 1346–1347, the crops were a failure, in wheat as well as in grapes and olives.

Arrangements were made to import grain from south Italy, Sicily and Africa, but the merchants of Siena and Genoa, who were contracted to transport the foodstuffs, kept half for their own cities.

[8] In his famous introduction to the Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio repeats the number 100,000 and provides harrowing details of the breakdown of social connections and human feelings.

[11] The current cathedral of Florence is dedicated to the Assumption of the Body of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.

In the Roman synod of Pope Eugene II of November 826, it was ordered that Canons live together in a cloister next to the church.

In 876, the Council of Pavia decreed in Canon X that the bishops should enclose the Canons: uti episcopi in civitatibus suis proximum ecclesiae claustrum instituant, in quo ipsi cum clero secundum canonicam regulam Deo militent, et sacerdotes suos ad hoc constringant, ut ecclesiam non relinquant et alibi habitare praesumant.