{{Short description|Quarantine station for maritime travelers}} {{Other uses}} {{Redirect|Lazaret}} [[Image:Lazareto EntradaPrincipal.jpg|Principal entrance to the lazaretto on Mahón|thumb]] A '''lazaretto''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|l|æ|z|ə|ˈ|r|ɛ|t|oʊ}} {{respell|LAZ|ə|RET|oh}}), sometimes '''lazaret''' or '''lazarette''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|l|æ|z|ə|ˈ|r|ɛ|t}} {{respell|LAZ|ə|RET}}), is a quarantine station for maritime travelers. Lazarets can be ships permanently at anchor, isolated islands, or mainland buildings. In some lazarets, postal items were also disinfected, usually by fumigation.<ref>{{cite web|access-date=March 27, 2005| url=http://www.geocities.com/hotsprings/2615/medhist/postal.html| title=The Disinfection of Postal Items| work=C. Savona-Ventura|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050122104219/http://www.geocities.com/hotsprings/2615/medhist/postal.html|archive-date=2005-01-22}}</ref> This practice was still being done as late as 1936, albeit in rare cases.<ref name=melitensiawth>{{cite journal|last1=Cassar|first1=Paul|title=A Tour of the Lazzaretto Buildings|journal=Melita Historica|date=1984|volume=9|issue=4|pages=374–75|url=http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Melita%20Historica/MH.09(1984-87)/MH.9(1984)4/orig05.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151217010316/http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/Melita%20Historica/MH.09(1984-87)/MH.9(1984)4/orig05.pdf|url-status=usurped|archive-date=December 17, 2015}}</ref>
==Etymology== The word comes from {{langx|it|lazzaretto}} {{IPA|it|laddzaˈretto|}}, derived the name of Santa Maria di Nazareth, the Venetian island where this type of institution was founded in 1423 - the passage from "nazzaretto" to "lazzaretto" was probably influenced by the previous use to dedicate hospitals for lepers to Saint Lazarus. Originally it was conceived as a hospital for the people affected by the plague. Later on, the construction of the "Lazzaretto nuovo" (1468) on another Venetian island introduced the practice of the quarantine.<ref>{{cite web|title=Lazzaretti Veneziani|url=https://lazzarettiveneziani.it/it/largomento-le-parole-dei-lazzaretti-nel-mondo|access-date=9 May 2024}}</ref>
== Throughout history == [[File:Malta - Gzira - Manoel Island - Lazzaretto+Fort (MSTHC) 01 ies.jpg|thumb|Lazzaretto of Manoel Island, Malta]] [[File:Odderøya quarantine station wall.JPG|thumb|The wall at the quarantine station of Odderøya, intended to keep locals away from the plague sick.]] In 1592, a lazaretto made of wooden huts was built on Manoel Island in Malta during a plague epidemic. It was pulled down in 1593 after the disease had subsided. In 1643, Grandmaster Lascaris built a permanent Lazzaretto in the same place to control the periodic influx of plague and cholera on board visiting ships. The hospital was subsequently improved over time, and was enlarged during the governorship of Sir Henry Bouverie in 1837 and 1838. The hospital was closed in 1929 and the building still exists to this day.<ref>{{cite web|title=Manoel Island|url=http://lc.gov.mt/Page.aspx?catid=33&pid=235&lid=1|website=Local Councils' Association|access-date=22 August 2014|archive-date=7 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307045215/http://lc.gov.mt/Page.aspx?catid=33&pid=235&lid=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> There are plans for the restoration of the Manoel Island Lazaretto.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Bugeja|first1=Zillah|title=Quarantine hospital for over 250 years to be restored|url=http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080904/local/quarantine-hospital-for-over-250-years-to-be-restored.223450|access-date=19 October 2014|work=Times of Malta|date=4 September 2008}}</ref>
Africans trafficked to Savannah, Georgia during the days of slavery typically had to wait at a quarantine station on Tybee Island, which the slave ships accessed by way of Lazaretto Creek.{{cn|date=December 2022}}
Lazaretto Island (formerly known as Aghios Dimitrios) is located two nautical miles north-east of Corfu thumb|The lazaretto at the historic Columbia River Quarantine Station near Knappton, Washington, US ({{Coord|39.641|19.924}}). In the early 16th century, when Corfu was under Venetian rule, a monastery was established on the islet for prevention of diseases. Later that century, the island was renamed Lazaretto, after the leprosarium that was set up there. In 1798, when the French ruled Corfu, the Russo-Turkish fleet took over the islet and ran it as a military hospital. In 1814, during the British occupation, the leprosarium was renovated and went into operation again. After the Ionian Islands were united with Greece (1864), the leprosarium only operated when needed.{{cn|date=December 2022}}
By the 1830s, the Ottoman Empire and Egypt had expansive quarantine systems. The Ottoman Supreme Council of Health, including the Quarantine Administration, oversaw 59 quarantines: 12 each on the European and Anatolian shores, 16 inland, 8 in Syria, 7 on the Aegean islands, and 2 in Libya.<ref name="Hamed-Troyansky">{{Cite journal|last=Hamed-Troyansky|first=Vladimir|date=2021|title=Ottoman and Egyptian Quarantines and European Debates on Plague in the 1830s–1840s|journal=Past and Present|issue=253|pages=235–270|doi=10.1093/pastj/gtaa017}}</ref> The Egyptian Quarantine Board set up permanent quarantines along the Nile delta, the Levantine coast, and on the Red Sea. The board completed Egypt’s first European-style lazaretto in Alexandria in 1833. Ottoman and Egyptian lazarettos were issuing internationally recognized bills of health.<ref name="Hamed-Troyansky"/>
Lazaretto Islet survives on Ithaca and another on Zakynthos.{{cn|date=December 2022}}
According to Edward Hasted in 1798, two large hospital ships (also called lazarettos), (which were the surviving hulks of forty-four gun ships) were moored in Halstow Creek in Kent. The creek is an inlet from the River Medway and the River Thames. The hospital ships watched over ships coming to England which were forced to stay in the creek under quarantine to protect the country from infectious diseases, including the plague.<ref name=hasted>{{cite journal |last=Hasted |first=Edward |year=1799 |title=Parishes |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=62945 |journal=The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent |volume=6 |pages=34–40 |access-date=28 February 2014}}</ref>
Fidra, an uninhabited island in the Firth of Forth in eastern Scotland, has the ruins of an old chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, which was used as a lazaretto.<ref name=history>{{Cite web|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/scotland/pp411-428|title=Faifley - Fifeshire | British History Online|website=www.british-history.ac.uk}}</ref>
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, the German-run Treblinka extermination camp had a pit where new arrivals who were severely ill would be shot; the staff's euphemistic name for this area was the lazaret.{{cn|date=April 2023}}
As of 2002, one of the few remaining lazarets in Europe are Lazzarettos of Dubrovnik, Croatia.<ref>{{cite web |access-date=March 27, 2005 |url=http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/latestnews/wmf2002-dubrovnik.asp |title=AMERICAN EXPRESS AND PBZ AMERICAN EXPRESS ANNOUNCE U.S. $80,000 GRANT FOR RESTORATION OF THE LAZARET IN DUBROVNIK |work=American Express |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050307065717/http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/latestnews/wmf2002-dubrovnik.asp |archive-date=March 7, 2005 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
In the United States, the Philadelphia Lazaretto was built in 1799 as a response to the 1793 yellow fever outbreak.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ushistory.org/laz/index.htm|title=Lazaretto Quarantine Station|website=www.ushistory.org}}</ref> The Columbia River Quarantine Station located across the river from Astoria, Oregon, also has a remaining example of a government built lazaretto constructed in 1912 by the US Marine Hospital Service. The lazaretto building is currently a museum dedicated to telling the story of station and its impact on the region.{{cn|date=December 2022}}
==Italy== thumb|Vanvitelli's Lazzaretto in Ancona thumb|map of the Lazzaretto of Ancona The first lazaret was established by Venice in 1423<ref>{{citation|title=D. Chambers, B. Pullman, "Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630" p.114}}</ref> on Santa Maria di Nazareth (also called "Nazaretum" or "Lazaretum", today "Lazzaretto Vecchio"), an island in the Venetian Lagoon ({{Coord|45.406|12.36}}).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.com/maps?q=Isola+del+Lazzaretto+Vecchio,+Italy|title=Google Maps|website=Google Maps}}</ref> Additionally there is Lazzaretto Nuovo, also in the lagoon.{{cn|date=April 2023}}
In 1732, Pope Clement XII commissioned the architect Vanvitelli to design and build the Lazzaretto of Ancona at the south end of the Ancona harbor. Vanvitelli designed it on an artificial island he created, and gave it the shape of a regular pentagon, which is the symbolic geometric shape that characterizes the entire structure, from the surrounding walls to the buildings and the central square.<ref>{{Cite book|author=C. Mazzetti, G. Bucciarelli, F. Pugnaloni|title=Il Lazzaretto di Ancona, un'opera dimenticata|trans-title=The Lazzaretto of Ancona, a forgotten work|publisher=Cassa di Risparmio di Ancona|date=1978}}</ref>
The Lazzaretto of Milan features prominently in Alessandro Manzoni's ''I promessi sposi'' (''The Betrothed'').{{cn|date=December 2022}}
==Ireland== The Old Gaol at Market Square Roscommon was used as a lazaretto for ten years from 1830 following its use as a Lunatic Asylum, and prior to its use as a commercial and private residence.{{cn|date=April 2023}}
==See also== *{{annotated link|HMS Dreadnought (1801)|HMS ''Dreadnought'' (1801)}}, used as a lazaretto after her decommissioning *{{annotated link|Lazareto (disambiguation)}} *{{annotated link|Leper colony}} *{{annotated link|Order of Saint Lazarus}} *{{annotated link|Lazzaretto of Ancona}}, an 18th-century pentagonal quarantine building on an artificial islet in the harbor *{{annotated link|San Lazzaro degli Armeni|aka=Saint Lazarus Island}} *{{annotated link|Social distancing}} *{{annotated link|Spinalonga}} *{{annotated link|Villefranche-sur-Mer}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Wiktionary}} {{Commons category}} * Do Paco, David (2021). "[http://journals.openedition.org/lerhistoria/8054 Tempo, Scales and Circulations: The Lazarets in Eighteenth-Century Trieste]". ''Ler Historia'' (78): 61–84. doi:10.4000/lerhistoria.8054. ISSN 0870–6182. * {{cite news |url = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/short-history-of-quarantine/ | title = A Short History of Quarantine | work = NOVA | publisher = PBS | first = PETER |last = TYSON | date = 2004-10-12}} * {{cite news |url = http://194.243.104.176/website/img_laguna/info/info_isola.asp?id=27 | title = The ''Lazzaretto Island'' in Venice, the first lazaretto in the World | language = it | work = Comune di Venezia | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070711154757/http://194.243.104.176/website/img_laguna/info/info_isola.asp?id=27 | access-date = 2007-07-11| archive-date = 2007-07-11 }}
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Category:Quarantine facilities Category:Italian inventions