“When evening comes, I return to my home, and I go to my study; and on the threshold I take off my everyday clothes, which are covered with mud and mire, and I put on regal and curial robes; and dressed in a more appropriate manner I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly […]. and there I am not ashamed to speak to them, to ask them the reasons for their actions; and they, in their humanity, answer me; and for four hours I feel no boredom, I dismiss every affliction, I no longer fear poverty nor do I tremble at the though of death: I become completely part of them.”
— Letter from Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori, 1513
People stand together while wearing masks in an effort to protect themselves from the Spanish Flu. The 1918 Spanish flu killed up to 50 million people around the world and has been called “the mother of all pandemics”.
