This long building on the shoreline just south of the walled city was built as the lazaretto, or quarantine. Those towns like Dubrovnik which made their living by the sea trade were at ground zero for the spread of infections. This risk was somewhat lessened by placing new arrivals into separate buildings (even islands) for forty days (and Dubrovnik gave us the term "quarantine" derived from the Venetian-Italian dialect word for "forty.") This building was created and modified from the 16th to 18th centuries, but its predecessors date from the 14th century when the Black Plague eliminated nearly a third of Europe's population. Six long buildings and courtyards rise perpendicular to their connecting sea wall in one of the few quarantines left in Europe.
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