Death in the Time of Pandemic: A Tuscan Cholera Cemetery at Benabbio (1855)

Abstract

Cholera was one of the great killers of the 19th century. The pandemic waves that took place between 1823 and 1899 caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean region and across Europe. However, the excavation of cholera cemeteries is very rare. This article presents the results of excavations at the cholera cemetery of Benabbio, a mountain village near Lucca (northwest Tuscany) in which cholera broke out in the late summer–early autumn of 1855, causing 46 deaths in a population of around 900 inhabitants. The excavation made it possible to detect for the first time the material characteristics of a cholera cemetery. The findings provide a new source for anthropologically reading the reaction of a community facing the mortality crisis, which fluctuated between acceptance of regulations imposed by the authorities and local strategies of resistance.