Lazzaretto of Manoel Island

Lazzaretto
Lazzarett
View of the Lazzaretto
General information
Status	Derelict
Type	Quarantine station
Location	Manoel Island, Gżira, Malta
Coordinates	35°54′4.9″N 14°30′16″E / 35.901361°N 14.50444°E / 35.901361; 14.50444
Construction started	1592 (temporary structure) 1643 (present building)
Renovated	1670, 1683, 1701, 1726, 1797
Owner	Government of Malta
Technical details
Material	Limestone

The Lazzaretto (Maltese: Lazzarett) is a former quarantine facility and hospital on Manoel Island in Gżira, Malta. It is a complex of various buildings dating back to between the 17th and 19th centuries. Most of the structures still exist, although they are in a bad state due to damage sustained during World War II and over 30 years of abandonment. It is planned that the Lazzaretto be restored.

From 1526 onwards, Marsamxett Harbour began to be used for quarantine purposes. During the plague of 1592–93 (), a temporary lazzaretto was constructed on the island in the middle of the harbour, then known as the Isolotto and now called Manoel Island. Some warehouses a chapel dedicated to Saint Roch were also built at this point, but they were demolished in the late 18th century.

In 1643, the Grand Master of the Order of St. John, Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, decided to build a permanent lazzaretto due to fears of an epidemic. The Order acquired the island from the Church by exchanging it with some property at Tal-Fiddien. The Lazzaretto as built by Lascaris consisted of a single building, but a second block was built and expanded by Grand Masters Nicolas Cotoner in 1670, Gregorio Carafa in 1683, Ramon Perellos y Roccaful in 1701 and António Manoel de Vilhena in around 1726. In 1797, Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc built a new block and some warehouses in the Lazzaretto.

The Lazzaretto was also used as a hospital, and it saw a lot of use during the plague epidemic of 1813–14, the cholera epidemic of 1865 and the plague epidemic of 1937. It also served as a military hospital for British, French and Italian soldiers during the Crimean War. Several notable figures stayed in the Lazzaretto throughout its history, including Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Horace Vernet, Benjamin Disraeli and Alphonse de Lamartine.