On Pestilence

In the spring of 1576, the Health Office of Venice, fearful of a growing outbreak of plague, imposed a quarantine upon the city. The move was controversial, with some in power questioning the precise nature of the disease and concerned about the economic and political impact of the closure. A tribunal of physicians was summoned by the Doge, among them Girolamo Mercuriale, professor of medicine in nearby Padua and perhaps the most famous physician in all of Europe. Whatever the disease was that w