Quarante giorni

First blog post that’s acting as procrastination fuel – I hope it’s the last…

I thought I would share a tidbit of potentially useless information that I found interesting. In the 14th Century, when the Black Death was rampant in Europe, the Venetian Republic decided that they would inspect all incoming ships. Included in their inspection procedures was the detainment of passengers for 30 days. They held them for a month in order to allow any potential carriers of the disease/infection to become sick and show signs of clinical infection. However, even with a 30 day detention, the Black Death was still being spread by these passengers. To remedy this, they held them for 40 days, and this seemed to do the trick.

Anyway, forty days is quarante giorni in what I believe is Italian, and this is where the word quarantine originates!