the PLAGUE, the Osella and the Lazaretto of POVEGLIA
The Serenissima is in panic for the plague but a firm action by the doge and the Health Office, celebrated by an “ex voto” osella, save the city
by Roberto Ganganelli | Plagues and epidemics have marked the story – that of Covid-19, which we hope has come to an end, confirms it – and the escape or the cessation of the danger have represented, throughout history, occasions for jubilation and celebration.
Often, the end of an epidemic event has been attributed to divine interventions but, as they say, “Help yourself, Heaven will help you” and, from this adage, only a page of Venetian history escapes a saddle, that of 1793he tells us in an exemplary way.
“Almost a prodigy in the tenth eighth century imprisoned and conquered this enemy of humanity, who had known how to introduce himself and made that people unharmed. That other times he had been miserably hit, and torn apart ”.
With these words the tax lawyer Lorenzo Alugarain his work entitled Historical description of Contagion that developed in a Hydriot Tartanella existing in the Poveglia Canal in June 1793 and practical rinsing means on that Islandto describe the actions taken by the Health Office of the Serenissima in those crucial months.
A year, 1973, which could have gone down in history as that ofyet another devastating plague epidemic for the city and the population of Venice, but in which things went very differently.
Thanks to a special judiciary destined to safeguard city and state health, as well as the optimal geographical position for the isolation of people infected by the disease, in fact, Poveglia became the seat of that Lazzaretto Nuovissimo which made it possible to isolate the disease that arrived in the lagoon through the crew of a merchant ship coming from the Levant.
He was doge Lodovico Maninthat would go down in history as the 120th and last magistrate of the Serenissima to wear the “horn” and, to celebrate the escaped epidemic, the mint was ordered to coin a saddle to which straight the Virgin Mary descends from heaven, the head crowned with stars, and takes a ship away from Venice; in the background of the buildings, probably those of hospital of Poveglia in which the contagion had been contained and subsequently eradicated.
NEC NUPER DEFECI, “Not even now I’m faint”: these are the words that the engraver of the coin has Mary pronounce, whose intercession would have been essential to eradicate the last plague of the eighteenth century.
However, as mentioned, the investments and actions of the Doge’s government were also essential to avoid a possible, devastating emergency: already towards the middle of the century there were thousands of ducats to reclaim the canals around the Lazzaretto Nuovo and to face the events of 1793, more than ten thousand were needed.
Money well spent why Poveglia, in 1798, would again play an essential role as a quarantine place for an infected crew arriving in Venice; the last scratch of the plague in the history of the city.
For who learn more about the history of plagues and epidemics in Venicereads the reading of an interesting master’s degree thesis in History from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Age written by Stefano Mossolin and accessible at this address.