Only once before have I seen St. Peter’s Square empty. It was on a magical night — Christmas Eve of the year I spent as a college student in Rome. As a friend and I walked through Bernini’s colonnade, the Vatican seemed to emerge from the darkness, bathed in a soft light. It thrilled us with anticipation as we walked toward the basilica to hear the pope say midnight Mass.

The images coming out of Italy now, with COVID-19 deaths racking up frightening numbers and citizens under a tight lockdown, are nothing like that. In photos, the great piazzas of Florence and Rome sit deserted, but it’s an eerie emptiness. The murk of Venice’s canals has cleared, and fish and dolphins swim in them as if there had never been humans there.