The System of Lazzaretti in the Early Modern Mediterranean

This dissertation examines the history of lazzaretti - quarantine centres - in the early modern Mediterranean. Merchants, travellers, sailors and goods were quarantined and disinfected inside vast complexes built in port cities and trading posts on the most trafficked trade routes of the Republic of Venice, the Austrian Littoral, the states of the Italian Peninsula, Malta and France. Perfected in the sixteenth and seventeenth century by the Republic of Venice in its territories, between the late seventeenth and the end of the eighteenth centuries lazzaretti progressively formed a sophisticated transnational system of plague prevention. The system allowed for safe commercial exchanges with cities occasionally hit by epidemics and, above all, with the Ottoman Levant and the Barbary Coast, where plague was considered endemic. While specific quarantine locations and geographical perspectives have been investigated in the past, this dissertation places the study of the transnational system of lazzaretti and quarantine at the core of research. Quarantine and lazzaretti are investigated as key elements of the history of the Mediterranean shared context. By focusing on the architecture of lazzaretti and quarantine procedures, this dissertation stresses the movement and circulation of people, goods and ideas across the Mediterranean. Continuity and change are highlighted in the study of socio-cultural practices linked to notions of plague, contagion, disease prevention and the relationship between body, objects, and the environment. Lazzaretti are analysed through the archival collections of health boards which provide detailed insights on procedures, political issues and the day-to-day routine of lazzaretti. The study of material culture and the spatial analysis of lazzaretti are also placed at the core of this research. By investigating the system of lazzaretti, this dissertation contributes to a variety of aspects of Mediterranean history: its socio-cultural history, material culture history and the history of medicine.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Ini', Marina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Laven, Mary

• Early Modern
• Mediterranean
• Quarantine
• History of Medicine

Licence

• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.82053

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/334635