Moralization is a common practice in films featuring pandemics that allows filmmakers to comment about who is responsible for spreading disease. Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella Death in Venice and Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation by the same name both feature cholera as the backdrop for the plot, but very strongly resist a moral interpretation. However, the themes of each can only be described as well as the history of cholera in Italy is understood. The construction of cholera in Death in Venice is not always accurate to the reality of cholera din Italy during the early 1900s, but the similarities and differences allow Mann and Visconti to make thematic claims about the role of classicism in modernity, the relationship between art, artist, and society, and the death of aristocracy. This paper will examine how the history of the 6th cholera pandemic and the Public Health response of Italy impacts the themes of Death in Venice.