The Lazzaretto Vecchio ("Old Lazaret"), formerly known as Santa Maria di Nazareth ("Holy Mary of Nazareth"), is an island of the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy, located near the Lido of Venice. Between 1403 and 1630 it housed a hospital which cared for people during the plague epidemics and as a leper colony, giving rise to the English words lazaret and lazaretto. It was later used, as were other islands, as a military post. It covers an area 2.53 hectares (6.3 acres) large.[citation needed]
Since 2004 archaeologists have unearthed more than 1500 skeletons of plague victims buried here between the 15th and 17th centuries. These have been found in individual as well as in mass graves. The remains of thousands more are expected still to be found on the small island as the death-toll reportedly reached 500 per day in the 16th century.[1]
