There is little comfort in the news these days: grim and frightening statistics that measure the relentless global march of the viral outbreak; reports of medical workers in many countries heroically treating patients in dire conditions; and stark images showing how much of the world has come to a standstill because of the health crisis.

If there was a place you could disappear to in these troubling times, not only for a respite but also for a reminder that the wheel will turn, that life can get better, and to remember a doctor who fought on the front lines during another epidemic, you’d go to a landmark villa in Capri, once home to Axel Munthe, who helped treat the poor and sick in Naples during a calamitous cholera outbreak in the 19th century.