The Lazzaretto Vecchio was open for visits this weekend. Openings are occasional and this was only occasion to see the island this year.
On this day, six hundred years ago, the Senate of the Republic of Venice decided to create the first ever permanent plague hospital, the Lazzaretto Vecchio
The Festa del Redentore has been celebrated in Venice since 1577, to mark the end of the disastrous plague epidemic of 1575-77.
A chronology of the Lazzaretto Nuovo, the first permanent quarantine station for the bubonic plague in the world, founded in 1468 by the Republic of Venice.
The quarantine station on Lazzaretto Nuovo was for three centuries one of the main Venetian defences against the black plague.
It took the Venetians almost a century to do something efficient about the black plague – but we haven’t fared much better with climate change.
The lazzaretti in Venice were the Venetian republic’s response to the emergency of the plague, and an efficient response too.
Quarantine is derived from the Venetian (and Italian) word for forty, because the quarantine period on the Lazzaretto Nuovo ended up around forty days.
Lazzaretto Vecchio was the first stable hospital and quarantine station for the bubonic plague in the world, founded in 1423 by the Republic of Venice.
Lazzaretto Vecchio was the first stable hospital and quarantine station for the bubonic plague in the world, founded in 1423 by the Republic of Venice.