This volume of Lacunae comes to you under the shadow of the ongoing plague. As we head into 2021 and yet more contagion and quarantine, let us recall the plague that came to northern Italy and the city of Florence in 1629. In January 1631, the city’s health board, the Sanità, having implemented an unsuccessful cordon sanitaire, instituted a quarantine and ordered citizens locked in their homes. The city fell quiet, ordinary life was suspended, socialising and meetings were banned, churches were gated, and the Sanità arranged the delivery of food, wine, and firewood to people’s homes. Those who broke quarantine were punished with fines and imprisonments, with fines helping to pay for the enormous cost of the Sanita’s spending on food and medicine…
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