“Isola del Lazzareto Nuovo”
2013
Media: acrylic on board
Size: 102x 102 cm
This is the large island which faces Saint Erasmus. It is perhaps most famously connected with the great plague of 1576. Also known as “Isola della vigna murata” (Island of the walled vineyard), it belonged to the monks of Saint George the Great, and was subsequently requisitioned by the Senate in 1458. It became a place of obligatory quarantine for merchants and sailors from countries with contagious diseases.
The island changed it’s name to Lazzareto Nuovo. During the great plague in Venice in 1576, anyone suspected of carrying the plague would stay there and be transferred to Lazzareto Vecchio if the symptoms of the disease appeared or were sent home if they recovered. It was a hospital island until half way through 1700s and was then abandoned. In 1800, along with many other islands, it became a storehouse for the military. It was definitively abandoned in 1975 and handed over to nature to return its natural landscape.
