The book explores how governments, public opinion, social entities, and cultural production have avoided or sublimated contagion during cholera, typhoid, syphilis, malaria, HIV and COVID-19 to impose narratives of the nation’s healthy body in Italy and its colonies. Examples range from a tuberculosis sanatorium in Capri that masked as a luxury hotel and hideaway for queer couples, to an obscure but talented professor who found a new cure for syphilis; from denial of disease in governmental actions to sublimated representations in Italian art, literature, and film such as Luchino Visconti’s cinematic adaptation of Thomas Mann’s , to a sociological study of the need to include fragile figures based on the lessons of COVID-19. Intended for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the history of medicine, political and cultural history, and Italian studies, this volume shows how contagious diseases clash with the official narrative of emerging modernized urban settings and challenge the desire for political and economic stability.