Results reported in the journal Communications Earth & Environment [1] submitted to HN [2]

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02964-0

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151324

The causal relationship here is murky. If have a hard time believing that a change in Italian shipping in 1345 was the only thing that allowed the bubonic plague to enter the otherwise hermetically sealed Europe.

The reason for the plague was disastrous health and cleanliness standards.

While most folks have probably heard of "the" Renaissance:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance

it was not the first in history:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_centur...

There's a certain 'critical mass' of people and thinkers, as well as decent enough communications (roads, letters) to allow for collaboration, needed to achieve a flowering/growth of knowledge, and that was cut off by (amongst other things) the Black Death:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages