In the Renaissance, Italy was made up of many small territorial states, and travel between them was regularly curtailed because of outbreaks of plague. Travelers moving between regions during these times had to carry health passes issued by local governments testifying that they were traveling from places free of plague.

In the opening to “The Decameron,” the 14th-century poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio described reactions in his native Florence to an outbreak. He lamented that “the reverend authority of the laws, both human and divine, was all in a manner dissolved and fallen into decay.” We should take Boccaccio’s account as a warning. Despite Machiavelli’s call in 1513 for Italian unification in the final pages of “The Prince,” Italy only became a single nation in 1861; its deep regional divisions are still felt politically, linguistically, gastronomically and in the infrastructure of its transit systems.

In this time of coronavirus, Italy’s national identity — and that of Europe more broadly — is showing signs of strain. In addition to closing off certain towns with clusters of infections, regional governments are working to isolate themselves from the rest of the country. Most notably, the province of Basilicata has imposed a 14-day quarantine on all citizens entering from Piedmont, Lombardy, the Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria. These measures are about much more than health controls. They highlight regional identities and emphasize the tensions between local and national actions being taken to contain Italy’s outbreak.

Beyond the exacerbation of regionalism in Italian society, we should be on guard against the ways that outbreaks of disease have historically led to the persecutions of marginalized people. One of the best documented social outcomes of the plague in late-medieval Europe was the violence, often directed at Jews, who were accused of causing plague by poisoning wells.

Since the eruption of the coronavirus, we have witnessed widespread anti-Asian discrimination and numerous acts of violence against Asians. We should learn from the past, identify these violent attacks as the scapegoating they are, and condemn them swiftly and harshly.