From the
time I am writing this (1 March 1555), before 177 years, 3
months and 11 days, by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and
more still by inundations, the world between this day and
that, before and after, shall be diminished, and its population
so reduced that there will hardly be hands enough to attend
to agriculture, and the lands will be left as long without
culture as they have been under tillage.
(Preface to Centuries, ¤26)