According to Machiavelli's records, in 1353, a band of marauding soldiers burst into Tuscany and looted it extensively, leaving every city in Italy terrified and uneasy.
These marauders had once been mercenaries, fighting for the Pope residing in France and the Emperor residing in Germany over their respective interests in Italy. But when the war ended, the soldiers were not paid, so they began robbing their way across Italy.
Such things were common in troubled times, too insignificant to warrant even a corner in the official histories, yet this one became connected to wizards.
The magical economic bubble of the fourteenth century occurred in 1378, thirty years after the financial crisis caused by the king's default in 1348. The Ciompi Revolt also took place in 1378.
In 1366, Florence permitted the import of slaves, but compared to the ninety thousand people lost to the Black Death, they could not completely fill the labor shortage.
Yet war raged throughout Italy, while Florence alone remained relatively peaceful, at least until 1353. During that time, many craftsmen and commoners fleeing the war escaped into the territory of the Republic of Florence, while other places continued to suffer under the ravages of war.
This allowed Florence to recover faster than other cities. The plundering of 1353 also put the entire city on alert. Then there was the conflict between the Ricci family and Albizzi family within the city. Both sides wanted to seize power in the republic by defeating the other, though things had not yet escalated to armed conflict before then.
Florence was not yet the center of the Renaissance, but it was already the richest city in Europe. Having witnessed the Black Death's terrible mortality rate, people replaced the call of Heaven with the pursuit of present pleasures, as if they had