This is a sentence describing Seville in the Spanish masterpiece Don Quixote. Seville, as the shipping gateway between Iberian Peninsula and the New World, became the most dynamic first-tier city in Spain and even Europe from 16 to 17 century because of its monopoly position in trade.

The Spanish drama The Black Death is set in Seville at the end of16th century, and shows the life of Spanish big cities in the Renaissance in a highly reductive way.

1. With the arrival of new world wealth, a group of dignitaries and business and diplomatic envoys from all over Europe quickly gathered in this city. With the continuous expansion of the city, the demand of wealthy aristocrats for luxury houses, churches and other infrastructure has brought job opportunities to many businessmen, construction workers, lumberjacks, stone miners, sculptors, ceramics workers, goldsmiths and painters.

Spain Square in downtown Seville

At the same time, this wealthy city attracts a large number of landless peasants, beggars and criminals because of its relatively generous church charity system. From 1530 to 1600, the population of Seville soared from about 50,000 to150,000, making it the most populous city in Spain at that time and one of the three largest cities in Europe.

Here, you can see craftsmen, businessmen, sailors, soldiers, African slaves, Muslims and immigrants who go to the New World to make a living. People flock from Spain, Portugal, Flanders, Italy, France, Germany and Britain to look for opportunities to get rich, but most people often find only poverty and chaos.

The wealth shipped from the American continent makes the city shine, while the people at the bottom still live in simple streets, with almost no medical and health protection, and plague and famine may kill them at any time.

On the streets of Seville, well-dressed wealthy aristocrats often go hand in hand with orphans who commit crimes in order to survive. On the one hand, the inquisition arrested pagans, and on the other hand, it was a dirty street full of beggars, hooligans and prostitutes. Religious fanaticism and moral corruption coexist.

2. The Black Death From14th century to18th century, the Black Death was like the sword of Damocles hanging over Europe. Tens of millions of people died from London to Vienna, Marseille to Moscow under the repeated epidemic. You should know that in Europe at that time, a city with a population of100000 was a metropolis, so you can imagine how high the death rate of the Black Death was.

In the face of an epidemic, Spain cannot be immune. At the beginning of the play, a large-scale plague broke out in Seville at the end of16th century. The infected people were placed in a simple shed outside the city for isolation.

At that time, it was generally considered to be an effective protective tool, that is, a bird's beak mask. The nose and mouth are like birds' mouths, with small holes for breathing. The cloth bag in the bird's mouth is filled with spices and herbs to isolate droplets and smells. There are also wax robes, leather pants, gloves and shoes to protect the body, similar to the current protective clothing. But these clothes are hard for ordinary people to get.

From a professional perspective, medical workers hope to close the city as soon as possible.

However, Seville is a transit point for port trade, and the wealth seized by the Spanish Empire from the New World is constantly transferred to other regions through Seville. One fifth of the real money went to the king's treasury, and a large amount of other money was sold in Spain and remitted to bankers' families in Genoa and Germany to repay the loans of the empire. With the arrival of gold and silver, there are also exotic specialties: cocoa, potatoes, tomatoes, pineapples, peppers and so on.

The blockade of the city means that the shipping in and out will stop completely, the gold, silver and materials from outside will not be able to enter, and the material basis on which the trading city depends will no longer exist. So where does the cost come from to deal with the plague and the riots that may be caused by the shortage of food and materials?