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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,

the podcasts in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs,

from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise,

relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.

Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Whenever I think of Venice, the first images that come to mind are gondolas

gliding through canals, the crowds of St. Marks,

masked figures at Carnival. What I don't tend to picture is plague. And yet for centuries, Venice

wasn't just a city of beauty and commerce, but also a city of sickness, repeatedly struck by waves of epidemic disease.

What's fascinating, though, is the way Venice responded, because here was a city built on water,

its lagoon environment, both its greatest strength and its greatest vulnerability.

Plague could arrive on ships as easily as spices or silks. And so the Venetians

became pioneers in public health, inventing some of the very first permanent quarantine

institutions in Europe. These were the Lazareti, plague hospitals that in fact served

multiple roles. They were places to isolate the sick,

yes, but also to care for them, to pray for them, even to cleanse their belongings.

Quarantine itself was generally set at 40 days, not only for practical medical reasons,

...