584 plague
political circle. He also had the village of his birth,
Corsignano, reconstructed into a model of Renaissance
architecture, renamed Pienza. As soon as Pius died, the
Sienese political rights of the Piccolomini were revoked;
Catherine of Siena had already been canonized.
He tried to defend the JEWSand to reform the morals
and quality of the CLERGY, with little success. Before his
conversion to a more moral life, he had written a number
of works that gained him wide attention as a humanist
and author. These included erotic poetry, historical and
geographical texts, an autobiography, hundreds of letters,
commentaries on his times, and a proposal for educa-
tional reform using classical models. He sponsored other
building projects in Rome and in Siena.
Further reading:Pius II, Memoirs of a Renaissance
Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II, an Abridgement,trans.
Florence A. Gragg (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959); C.
M. Ady, Pius II (Æneas Silvius Piccolomini) the Humanist
Pope(London: Methuen, 1913); R. J. Mitchell, The Lau-
rels and the Tiara: Pope Pius II, 1458–1464 (London:
Harvill Press, 1962).
plague There were major pandemics of disease in the
sixth century and in the 14th century. Plagues disap-
peared in the West by 750 but returned before 1350 and
persisted until after 1650. The earlier pandemic spread
from ABYSSINIAor Ethiopia, traveled through Byzantium,
then under the rule of JUSTINIAN; and eventually reached
the British Isles between 541 and 546. There were other
outbreaks in about 542, about 558, about 572, about 581,
about 590, and about 600. By the seventh century urban
centers, such as CONSTANTINOPLEand ANTIOCH, had been
greatly depopulated. In the seventh century and after the
Arab conquests, the situation stabilized in the east. The
ARABS initially left the cities during the summers and
their armies moved into the desert or the mountains,
thus escaping the worst of the plagues season. However,
episodes of plague did catch up to them, especially in the
second half of the seventh century. In the first half of the
eighth century, plagues afflicted the eastern Mediter-
ranean but were generally absent from northern Europe.
It is not clear which diseases were actually involved,
but the mortality rate seemed to have been high and