L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020 L'Italo-Americano V enezia, la Sere- n i s s i m a a n d b e l l i s s i m a V e n e z i a . F o r centuries queen of the seas, always battling for the crown with Genova, la Superba. Hub of cultures, trends, people and…diseases. Yes because, as all places with high people passage and presence, Venezia had an issue or two in her history with epidemics. With all the intelligence you would expect from the most serene and powerful of queens, however, she mana- ged not only to ease off a threatening health hazard, but also to teach how to do it to the rest of the world, in a way we still use today. How? Simple: after under- standing that only isolating the sick from the healthy could prevent contagious diseases from claiming lives, Venice invented the qua- r a n t i n e . H e l p e d b y t h e natural conformation of its territory, largely made up of small, accessible, but easily isolable islands, Venice was the first, as early as the 15th century, to designate a speci- fic area to the containment and care of the contagious: it w a s t h e i s l a n d o f Lazzaretto Vecchio. Yes, "lazzaretto," a name that, in Italian, means just that: the place where the contagious r e s i d e . S o m e t i m e a f t e r , Lazzaretto Nuovo came. Here's their history. T h e f i r s t o f t h e t w o i s l a n d s t o a p p e a r o n o u r radars is the Lazzaretto V e c c h i o . L o c a t e d i n Venice's central lagoon, it is not far from the Lido and within the San Marco basin. It is likely that its favorable location — not far from the city, but safely separated from it — was the reason it was chosen, all the way back in 1423, to build a speciali- zed hospital for the treat- ment and isolation of people with plague. At the time, the island was known as isola di Santa Maria di Nazareth, hence the rise in usage of the word Nazaretum first and, later, of Lazzaretto, the lat- ter possibly result of some confusion with the name of a nearby island, that of San Lazzaro. Up to 1468, the Lazzaretto Vecchio was the only "lazza- retto" in Venice. In that year, however, the island of Vigna Murada, situated further out in the lagoon, was to become the new "lazaretto," used to quarantine people — more about it in a little while — and so, our 1423 Lazzaretto island became Lazzaretto V e c c h i o ( o l d L a z z a r e t t o island), as opposed to the 1468 Lazzaretto Nuovo (new Lazzaretto island). Since the foundation of its hospital, Lazzaretto Vecchio d e v e l o p e d g r e a t l y a n d remained an active part of Venetian life for centuries. Archaeological findings show the island was also used, in the 16th and 17th centuries as a burial ground for the m a n y v i c t i m s o f t h e t w o Black Death epidemics that hit the city. In later years, Lazzaretto Vecchio became a place for quarantine just like Lazzaretto Nuovo and, in the mid-19th century, it was tur- ned into a military deposit, with most of its medieval buildings being torn down. Lazzaretto Vecchio laid in a state of neglect for good p a r t o f t h e 2 0 t h c e n t u r y , until extensive restoration works began in 2008, sup- ported by the Ministry for P u b l i c W o r k s a n d t h e M i n i s t r y o f C u l t u r e a n d Heritage, with the aim of recovering all the structures and turning the island in p a r t o f t h e M u s e o A r c h e o l o g i c o d e l l a Laguna di Venezia. A n d w h a t a b o u t t h e Lazzaretto Nuovo? We said the island was transformed into Venice's quarantine location in 1468: the city's senators and medi- cal experts, upon realizing that the isolation of poten- tially infected individuals was necessary to curb the spread of certain diseases, made it compulsory for all m e r c h a n t s a n d s a i l o r s coming to Venice to spend 40 days on the Lazzaretto Nuovo before entering the city. Whatever came from the sea, needed to be qua- rantined, too, so large buil- dings called teze were crea- ted: here, goods were treated with aromatic herbs' fumes and sanitized. Juniper and rosemary were considered particularly efficient. The main structure of the island, the Tezon Grande dated to the 16th century and measured more than 100 m e t e r s i n l e n g t h : i t w a s , then, the largest building in Venice, second only to the Corderie dell'Arsenale. I t s w a l l s , c o v e r e d w i t h w o r d s , m e s s a g e s a n d drawings of the people who quarantined there, bear wit- ness to the merchants, sai- lors, guardians, as well as soldiers and security staff, w h o p o p u l a t e d t h e Lazzaretto Nuovo through the centuries. These old graf- fiti tell us also a lot about the many, amazing commercial connections of Venice during t h e R e n a i s s a n c e a n d t h e Baroque period, with men- t i o n s m a d e t o Constantinople, Alexandria of Egypt, Cyprus, Greece and many, many other pla- ces. But the strategic location o f t h e L a z z a r e t t o N u o v o , f r o m w h i c h e n t r y t o t h e lagoon could be easily con- t r o l l e d , m a d e i t a l s o a n important place from a mili- tary point of view: it is for this reason that its public health role was abandoned in the 18th century, when the island became a military gar- rison and deposit. Today, the Lazzaretto Nuovo is not only an important part of the history of Venice, but is also t o b e c o m e p a r t o f t h e already mentioned Museo Archeologico della Laguna di Venezia, once restoration works are over. Lazzaretto Vecchio and L a z z a r e t t o N u o v o : the symbol of Venice's place in the history of public health, as Eric Bertherat, WHO representative and specialist in infectious diseases famou- sly declared: "The Republic of Venice was the first to i m p l e m e n t a r e a l p u b l i c health strategy to control infectious diseases, in spite of the overall lack of under- standing of the problem in those times. It played an essential historic role and p e o p l e s h o u l d c o m e v i s i t Venice's Lazzaretto islands, t o f u l l y u n d e r s t a n d t h e immense innovation they represented in the history of p u b l i c h e a l t h . " I l a r i a Capua, virologist and direc- t o r o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f F l o r i d a ' s O n e H e a l t h Center, echoed his words: "Italy was a bona fide labora- tory, where it was finally understood how infrastruc- tures and, in general, the environment, could have a fundamental role in the dif- fusion of illnesses. Venice was the first to implement what we could define today an epidemiological approach. In its lazzaretti, ideas and practices essential for the control of infectious disea- ses were developed." Venetian quarantine: the history of the Lazzaretto Vecchio and Lazaretto Nuovo islands LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE CHIARA D'ALESSIO A view of the Lazzaretto Vecchio island (Photo: Wikipedia)

• Cover