Amazing discovery in Milan: a huge necroplis of about 500,000 ancient bodies has been discovered in the ground under the Policlinico Hospital.

The bodies are from the period between 1473 and 1695, when the hospital was already active and are of patients deceased for different types of illness, but many of them because of the terrible bubonic plague that hit Milan around 1600.

The plague, also called Black Death, had several outbreaks in the period between the 14th and 18th century in Europe and in many parts of the known world. The epidemy of 1600 in Milan was narrated by Alessandro Manzoni in the Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed).

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The discovery in Milan will shed light about the health conditions of the population of the ancient times in the region and will be useful in the studies of the history of patholgy, anthropolgy and genetics.  

Photos by: Fotogramma / Corriere della Sera