The Black Sea enters the book as the setting for a critical point in the Black Death’s westward transmission. In 1346 the plague reached Tana, a port at the mouth of the River Don, and from there spread through commercial connections toward the Mediterranean.

Tana and the Plague’s Arrival

The account connects the Black Sea to a wider chain of trade and disease transmission. Traders traveling along the Silk Road brought the plague from China to Tana. Genoese traders then helped carry it from the port into the Mediterranean world, linking a Black Sea arrival point to the epidemic’s rapid expansion across distant regions.

A Route into the Mediterranean

The sequence establishes Tana as a point of passage rather than an isolated destination. By early 1347, the plague had reached Constantinople; by the spring of 1348, it was spreading through France and North Africa and into Italy. The Black Sea’s importance in this episode lies in its place within the connected routes along which people and goods moved—and along which the disease followed.