Venezia, la Serenissima and bellissima Venezia. For centuries queen  of the  seas, always battling for the crown with Genova, la Superba. Hub of cultures, trends, people and…diseases. Yes because, as all places with high people passage and presence, Venezia had an issue or two in her history with epidemics. 

With all the intelligence you would expect from the most serene and powerful of queens, however, she managed not only  to ease off a threatening health hazard, but also to teach how to do it to the rest of the world, in a way we still use today. How? Simple: after understanding that only isolating the sick from the healthy could prevent contagious diseases from claiming lives,  Venice invented the quarantine.