By the end of the 17th century, the great waves of pestilence that had periodically swept Europe since the Black Death had come to an end. Consequently, the medical importance of the plague doctor, such as it was, also subsided.
The costume, however, with its sinister mask and black habit, was firmly entrenched in the public imagination. At some point in the 18th century, it entered the ambiguous and erotic territory of the Venetian Carnevale, where it joined a cast of characters otherwise drawn from the commedia dell'arte.
We may suppose that it served then, as now, as a memento mori. There is something in every festival, but especially carnivals, that is ripe with the promise of loss.
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