Institutions and geography as causes of biological discontinuity. The case of seventeenth-century plague pandemics in Italy : first results

This short article presents some first results from an ongoing research project, which is aimed at clarifying the factors that determined the spread of the 1629-31 plague in a morphologically and politically complex area of Italy : from the coast close to the city of Savona to the hinterland of Liguria and southern Piedmont. The article provides a preliminary exploration of the importance of geography and of institutional action against the spread of plague in shaping and limiting the diffusion of the disease. It makes use of new data collected from parish books of burials preserved in Italian archives, integrated with data coming from pre-existing databases.