The Lazzaretto di Santa Teresa represents a significant historical testimony of the city of Trieste, intimately linked to its port function and health issues in the Asburgo era.
Construction and Origins
Built in 1768-1769 on the shores of Gretta, near the tower of San Pietro, the Lazzaretto arose as a response to the growing need to control contagious diseases linked to the increasing maritime and commercial activity that characterized Trieste in the eighteenth century.
- The city, which became a free port in 1719 under the Asburgo empire, needed adequate structures for the isolation of ships and goods suspected of diseases.
- The Lazzaretto di Santa Teresa was intended for ships with a touched or suspected patent, subject to a full quarantine of forty-two days.
- Another lazzaretto, called "Vecchio" or di San Carlo, intended for ships with a clean patent, was assigned a quarantine of twenty-eight days.
The structure of Santa Teresa was surrounded by a high wall of seven meters and included two distinct basins to separate suspected ships from those free of contagion, each with regulated entrances closed by chain according to precise rules.
Architecture and Functionality
The architecture designed by the Cossuta brothers included:
- Water lanes and isolation environments for passengers and goods.
- A functional organization for rigorous health control.
Configuring itself as a state-of-the-art health complex for the time, justified by the frequent epidemics of smallpox and cholera that struck Trieste during the XIX century.
Asburgo Period
In the Asburgo Period, the construction and management of the Lazzaretto di Santa Teresa were part of a broader imperial effort aimed at protecting public health.
- Trieste as a fundamental commercial hub and free port of the Empire, especially for goods directed towards Vienna and central Europe.
Decline and Demolition
With the advent of the Southern Railway in 1857 and the subsequent urban expansion of the city, the Lazzaretto di Santa Teresa became progressively obsolete.
- It was completely demolished in 1868 to allow the expansion of the railway station and connections with the Porto Franco, marking the end of its original function.
In the Primo dopoguerra, the health and port context of Trieste underwent radical transformations linked to the changed political status of the city after the fall of the Impero Austro-Ungarico, but the Lazzaretto di Santa Teresa was not rebuilt, remaining a closed chapter in Triestine health history.
Curiosity
- The Lazzaretto was located in a historically significant area, under the tower of San Pietro, a place that in the past had also been used for capital executions, giving the area an aura of mystery and symbolic importance.
- The rigid organization of the basins and quarantines represented an advancement in the port health practices of the time.