Page 19 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Nobles’ quarters
The island’s original facilities had the capacity to
hold just over 200 people. Separate quarters were
built to house those of higher social status, but the
plague was indiscriminate and once they succumbed
to the disease they were buried alongside paupers in
the same mass graves. Jewellery, coins and combs
have been unearthed alongside the bodies.

The hospital
There were three types of plague — bubonic, septicaemic
and pneumonic — named depending on the part of the
body affected. Bubonic plague victims had swollen lymph
nodes, septicaemic had blood poisoning with dead and
blackened tissue and pneumonic had a bloody cough.
The hospital was built in 1423, but with no treatment and
little space, patients were piled three or four to a bed. Survivor transfer
Even though plague treatments
were primitive, some people did
manage to fight off the infection.
Those souls who survived their
Bell tower ordeal on Lazzaretto Vecchio
The plague was believed to be a divine punishment, (the ‘old’ quarantine island) were
so churches were erected so that prayers could be sent to convalesce on Lazaretto
made for the sick. The bell tower also provided a Nuova (the ‘new’ island).
convenient vantage point from which new arrivals Survivors travelled across the
could be monitored. This one was dedicated to Saint water, passing armed patrols and
Mary of Nazareth, and the island became known as mixing with quarantined sailors
Nazaretum, or Lazzaretto, eventually giving rise to and their cargo waiting to be
the word ‘Lazaret’, meaning isolation hospital. allowed into Venice.

Artificial island
The plague islands were located
in the inland sea surrounding
Venice, which is littered with
submerged mudflats. When the
tide went out, more land was
revealed beneath the water and,
as the demands on the island
increased, this hidden space was
reclaimed to accommodate more
buildings, giving the island its
distinctive artificial outline.

Staff quarters
Plague treatments were experimental and based on the best science of
the day, which revolved around the idea that the body was filled with four
humours — blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile — and that sickness
resulted from them becoming imbalanced. The hospital’s doctors would
have attempted to rebalance their patients by bloodletting, and its body © Adrian Mann
carriers would have been responsible for collecting and burying the dead.

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