In 1346 the bubonic plague, the Black Death reached the port city at the mouth of the Don River Tana in Black Sea. Tranmitted by fleas living on rats, plague was brought from China by traders traveling along the Silk Road. Commercial artery Trans -Asian thanks Genoese merchants mice was soon spread by fleas and plague Tana to the Mediterranean Sea in early 1347, the plague reached Istanbul. In the spring of 1348, it was spread through France and North Africa and the boot of Italy. Plague wiped out about half the population of the area it hit any of its arrival in Florence of Italy was witnessed firsthand by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, he later recalled.