A spatiotemporal reconstruction of the 1630 plague epidemic in Milan

In 1630, a devastating plague epidemic struck Milan, one of the most important Italian cities of that time, deeply affecting its demography and economy for decades. The lack of digitized historical data strongly limits our comprehension of that important event. In this work, we digitized and analyzed the Milan death registers of 1630. The study revealed that the epidemic evolved differently among the areas of the city. Indeed, we were able to group the parishes of the city (comparable with modern neighborhoods) in two groups based on their epidemiological curves. These different epidemiological progressions could reflect socio-economical and/or demographic features specific of the neighborhoods, opening questions about the relationship between these features and the evolution of epidemics in the pre-modern period. The study of historical records, like the one presented here, can help us to better understand European history and pre-modern epidemics.