engleski

Plague Control Measures in Early Modern Split and Distinctive Role of its Lazaretto

Drastic measures in controlling the plague practiced by Milan authorities at the end of 14. century when houses of infected were walled up or completely demolished were moderated and implemented in urban centres along the Adriatic coast by the Venetian government. Various chronicles and official reports describe efforts of authorities during the outbreak of contagion to isolate and confine the citizens in their own residences, to isolate city suburbs one from another, to segregate the sick from their families in lazarettos, to impede the approach to city gates and organize provision of food and necessary building material. But compelling procedure was practiced in city of Split. Spacious lazaretto, positioned just beside the city walls, wasn’t used for the isolation of the local, infected population during the contagious outbreaks as was the case with lazarettos in other Dalmatian towns and on Italian peninsula, but for the quarantine of incoming merchants and disinfection of their goods limiting thus its use exclusively for the benefit of trade. Instead, unable to use lazaretto infrastructure and in absence of city hospital, private country estates were possessed for segregation of sick, substitute wooden lazarettos were constructed in haste outside of Split city gates together with provisional warehouses where indispensable goods were aerated and temporary pools were formed in the sea for the immersion of infected goods.

Dalmatia, plague, Venetian government, organization, function

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