In the past twelve months, we’ve all become sadly acquainted with the idea of contact tracing: used very successfully in the management of the pandemic in countries like South Korea and Israel, it hasn’t been as efficient here in Italy, where a dedicated app, Immuni, has been largely considered a failure on all fronts.

This is pretty strange to say, if you think that the idea itself of contact tracing as a way to control the spread of infectious diseases comes from Italy. We need to go back to the 16th century and the times of the “great pox,” most commonly known as syphilis.