# St Roch in the Hospital \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [TINTORETTO, Jacopo]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Oil on canvas ## Commentary The plague was a constant danger in the harbour city of Venice, and the state sought to counter it by taking careful precautionary measures, for instance the building of the Lazzaretto Nuovo as a quarantine hospital around 1470. Tintoretto's painting could equally well show the plague hospital of the Lazzaretto Vecchio, also built on an island in the lagoon as early as 1423. The young women shown here entering from the sides of the picture to wash the sick, bind up their sores, and feed them, are probably unemployed prostitutes, who were pressed into service in the Lazzaretto Vecchio in times of plague. ## Related artworks - [A Philosopher \(detail\)]() - [A Philosopher]() - [Allegory of Faith]() - [Allegory of Fortune \(Felicità\)]() - [Allegory of Generosity]() - [Allegory of Goodness]() - [Allegory of Happiness]() - [Allegory of the Scuola della Carità]() - [Allegory of the Scuola della Misericordia]() - [Allegory of the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista]() - [Allegory of the Scuola di San Marco]() - [Allegory of the Scuola di San Teodoro]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()