Quarantine, Mobility, and Trade: Commercial Lazzarettos in the Early Modern Adriatic

Abstract

In the context of maritime transport, defensive measures of preventive isolation and disinfection of goods were fully developed in Venice only in the mid-sixteenth century. The institution of the lazzaretto, established a century earlier as a plague hospital, gained new, commercial functions developed further in the lazzaretti in Venice’s overseas border territories in Dalmatia and the Ionian islands. The chapter focuses on the evolution of the lazaretto from its original purpose as a plague hospital into a complex architectural site for managing the movement of people and goods between Ottoman territories and Western Europe.