In Terra Infecta, Andrea Bagnato tells an unfamiliar story about a well-known place. Since the early days of tourism, the cities and landscapes of Italy have been bywords for beauty and grandeur. But, at home and abroad, the same places have also been haunted by associations with disease and uncleanliness, often more to do with politics than conditions on the ground.

In this gripping narrative study, Bagnato shows how the modern quest for sanitation shaped Italy’s urban and rural landscapes, propelling major transformations from the draining of the wetlands around Venice, to demolitions and replanning in Naples, to the expulsion of the inhabitants of ancient Matera. He argues that current north–south inequalities are founded on spurious medical narratives, and focuses on the real impact on the people caught in their ministrations.

Ranging from Italian unification to the aftershocks of Covid-19, and drawing on architectural records, medical history, and the author’s own travels, Terra Infecta reveals the lived realities of grand schemes, traces of vanished communities, and forgotten histories of collective organisation and resistance.

Sightlines is a series of essays looking at architecture from distinct points of view, each taking the perspective of a particular entity, history, discipline, or form of writing.