Hogging the seafront just east of the Old Town is a row of stone buildings known as the Lazareti, built in the seventeenth century to quarantine visitors to the city in an attempt to ensure that they did not bring in any infectious diseases. The quarantine system in the Dubrovnik Republic was one of the oldest in the world, dating back to an edict of 1377 that controlled the movements of visitors from plague-bearing areas. After long-term restoration the Lazareti were reopened in 2019 to serve as a cultural hub providing different workshops and contemporary art programmes.