The Ragusans didn’t just establish Europe’s first quarantine. They created a shared strength to protect the city: elected public health officials were empowered with broad authority to enforce these and other rules. In 1390, the city appointed officiales contra venientes de locis pestiferis (officials against travelers from places of plague). After 1397, these health officers were elected annually and, after 1426, they served without pay. Ragusa, like Venice, was an aristocratic republic, and its leadership positions, including the plague fighters, were almost exclusively patricians. Venice followed Ragusa’s lead in 1486, and “by the middle of the 16th century all the major cities of Northern Italy had permanent Magistracies of public health.”
It is a reminder of the political nature of the response.