The plague doctor with the beaked mask might not have much to do with Venice — that figure is more likely to be French.
In the late Venetian republic, when the doge died, they held the funeral for a statue.
The Venetian state was always an ad hoc construct, and institutions came and went at the convenience of the ruling elite.
Quarantine was the main method of prevention of the black plague in Venice, and the lazzaretti served that purpose.
Full transcription of the Venetian text from the publication “Capitoli Da osservarsi nelli Lazaretti”, from 1674.
“Sanità” from the Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano by Giuseppe Boerio.
“Provveditori sopra la Sanità” from the Lessico Veneto (1851) by Fabio Mutinelli, translated by René Seindal.
“Provveditori e Sopraprovveditori alla Sanità” from the L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia: indice generale, storico, descrittivo ed analitico (1937) by Andrea da Mosto
The Republic of Venice changed continuously as conditions inside and outside of it changed, until it gradually found its final form in the 1300s and 1400s.
On October 10th, 1423, exactly six hundred years ago, the Venetian state decided to create the first lazaret in the world.