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From the article: When the number of victims started to subside,
people appear to have felt great relief and started living life to the
full. As a result of low food prices and high wages, the living
standard for the surviving members of the lower classes
dramatically rose, prompting Florentine chronicler and moralist
Matteo Villani to complain;
“The common people, by reason of the abundance and superfluity
that they found, would no longer work at their accustomed trades;
they wanted the dearest and most delicate foods ….while children
and common women clad themselves in all the fair and costly
garments of the illustrious who had died”.
Villani also criticized survivors for their lack of gratitude to
God for ending the terrible punishment he had inflicted on man.
Rather than becoming more pious;
“the opposite happened. Men ….gave themselves over to the most
disordered and sordid behaviour …. As they wallowed in idleness,
their dissolution led them into the sin of gluttony, into banquets,
taverns, delicate foods and gambling. They rushed headlong into
lust”.