Dubrovnik

The republic guarded its people as carefully as its trade. In 1377, with plague returning along the sea lanes, Ragusa ordered ships and travellers from infected places to wait thirty days on nearby islands before entering the city, one of the first quarantines anywhere, and in 1438 an aqueduct some twenty kilometres long began bringing fresh water from the hills to fountains in the town.

Its golden age came in the 15th and 16th centuries. The tribute it paid the sultan from 1458 bought low customs duties and freedom to trade across the Ottoman Balkans and on to the Black Sea, where Ragusan merchants went as no other Christians could. Decline came with the troubles of Mediterranean shipping and then with the earthquake of 1667, which killed more than 5,000 people and threw down most of the city's public buildings. Ragusa rebuilt and kept its independence until 1808, when Napoleon's marshal Marmont abolished the republic.