On 20 July 1577, the Day of the Redeemer, the doge of Venice held a grand festival to commemorate the ending of an outbreak of plague that had killed around 50,000 people in the city in two years. A bridge of boats was constructed across the lagoon to the island of Giudecca opposite St Mark’s Square, and the city fathers processed across it to where the doge had just laid the foundations of the great church of Il Redentore (the Redeemer), what would become the masterpiece of the architect Andreas Palladio. Every year since, the event has been celebrated, by the whole city, with processions, water-borne entertainments and fireworks.
Not all pandemics are commemorated in such grand style, not least because it can be hard to tell when they are really over – and perhaps also because, as French novelist Albert Camus memorably portrayed in The Plague, as soon as they seem to be over many people want to ‘get back to normal’, forget the horrors they have endured and perhaps the shameful choices they made. And often pandemics have simply not been seen as memorable public events that deserve commemoration. One such was the deadliest pandemic of modern times that caused perhaps 50 million deaths worldwide – almost 10 times as many as Covid, to date.
MEMORIES OF THE SPANISH FLU
In Europe the so-called ‘Spanish flu’ coincided with the final weeks of World War I, and struck many households that had already lost husbands, sons and brothers to the fighting. The pandemic mostly took place behind closed doors. The press was restrained, politicians took little note, workplaces and towns remained
