ABSTRACT

Public health for the plague drew upon and in turn influenced responses to other social and medical ills. The lazaretti were founded at the beginning of an intensive period of social and spatial shaping in early modern cities and developed alongside other key institutions. In their location and use of space, these latter institutions were influenced by early public health measures in response to plague. In their administration and potential for reputation-building, these institutions influenced lazaretti, as the plague hospitals developed a broader purpose in course of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The plague sick and their institutions were not conceptualised as being permanently on the outskirts of society or city. Instead, understandings of the place of these people and their spaces were richer and more varied. Perceptions of marginality of the plague sick were undermined not only by the temporary and cyclical nature of plague but also by the role of charity within early modern healthcare systems.