Le epidemie e l'immaginario della città peccaminosa

Epidemics and the Imaginary of the Sinful City · Epidemics have always had a very close link with cities, represented as the place characterized by differences, exchanges and contaminations. The cause of this urban connotation of epidemics, however, is the result not only of physical and urban features of the cities but also of their cultural traits and of their symbolic representation, their being always imagined as the place of licentious mores, of perdition and sin. Today, in the years of the pandemic by Covid-19, again, the precautions suggested by science are accompanied by those related to the need to keep a respectful behaviour of religious dictates to be able to rely on divine benevolence. Within the process of pluralization which characterizes postmodernity, alongside heuristic models based on models of scientific rationality, others attributable to criteria and categories linked to religion have found some space. Sometimes attributable to a specific reli gious belief, others to a more general religiosity that often disregards a more structured feeling of belonging towards a subjective spirituality. Also the research whose results are being discussed, has revealed a profound religiosity differentiated in form and intensity, and has showed how much the process of rationalization is related to the one of ‘re-enchantment’ of the world.