Politiche sanitarie in un mare da ordinare. Il lazzaretto di Fiume (Rijeka) tra la Repubblica di Venezia e l’Impero asburgico (XVIII secolo)

At the beginning of the 18th century, the Habsburg Empire's desire to expand its role in the Adriatic clashed with the Republic of Venice's claims to dominance. This dominance was structured around a system based on the triad of military control, commercial control and health control. Other players were also eroding Venice's power: the self-organized trans-state networks of the small and medium-sized ‘marinerie’ of the Adriatic ports and neighbouring seas. In this context, health policies were a battleground between rationality and differing perceptions of risk, as well as a tool to be used in the competition for power. The events surrounding the establishment of the lazaretto in Fiume (Rijeka) seem to show that modernization processes are always convoluted, contradictory, complex, and never linear or unidirectional.