Bagnio is a

loan word A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...

into several languages (from ). In English, French, and so on, it has developed varying meanings: typically a brothel, bath-house, or prison for slaves.

In reference to the Ottoman Empire

The origin of this sense seems to be a prison in

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

, built on former baths, or a prison for hostages near a bath-house in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

.''Definition of "bagnio" from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary''
Accessed 23 February 2015. Thereafter it was extended to all the slave quarters in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and the

Barbary The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) were the coastal regions of central and western North Africa, more specifically, the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, a ...

regencies. The hostages of the

Barbary pirates The Barbary corsairs, Barbary pirates, Ottoman corsairs, or naval mujahideen (in Muslim sources) were mainly Muslim corsairs and privateers who operated from the largely independent Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barba ...

slept in the prisons at night, leaving during the day to work as laborers, galley slaves, or domestic servants. The communication between master and slave and between slaves of different origins was made in a ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

'' known as ''Sabir'' or

Mediterranean Lingua Franca The Mediterranean Lingua Franca, or Sabir, was a contact language, or languages, that were used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. April McMahon describes Sabir as a "fifteenth century proto-pid ...

, a Mediterranean

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

language with Romance and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

vocabulary. The Slaves' Prison in

Valletta Valletta ( ; , ) is the capital city of Malta and one of its 68 Local councils of Malta, council areas. Located between the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett Harbour to the west, its population as of 2021 was 5,157. As Malta’s capital ...

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, which was both a prison and a place where Muslim slaves slept at night, was known as the ''bagnio'' or ''bagno''.

In English

''Bagnio'' was a term for a

bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

or bath-house. In England, it was originally used to name

coffeehouse A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually called ''nargi ...

s that offered Turkish baths, but by 1740 it signified a

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

where rooms could be hired with no questions asked, or a

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

.article from Saint Cloud (Minnesota) Journal, Thursday June 24, 1869.

In French

'' Bagne'' became the word for the prisons of the galley slaves in the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

; after galley service was abolished, the word continued to be used as a generic term for any hard labour prison. The last one in European France, the '' Bagne de Toulon'', was closed in 1873. The penal colony in

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

, which was not shut down until 1953, was also called a ''bagne'', and features in the famous bestseller '' Papillon''.

In fiction

''El trato de Argel'' (''Life in Algiers'', 1580), ''Los baños de Argel'' (''The Bagnios of Algiers'', 1615), ''El gallardo español'' (''The Gallard Spaniard'', 1615) and ''La gran sultana'' (''The Great Sultana'', 1615) were four comedies by

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

about the life of the galley slaves, called "caitiffs". Cervantes himself had been imprisoned in

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

(1575–1580). His novel ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'' also features a subplot with the story of a caitiff (chapters 39-41 of the first part). A bagnio, in reference to a

or boarding house, is mentioned in '' The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner'' (1824) by

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots language, Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a ...

as the location of a quarrel between two young

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

nobleman that precedes one of them being murdered and the other arrested for the crime. In '' The Day of the Locust'' (1939) by Nathanael West, Claude Estee's wife, Alice, says "Nothing like a good ''bagnio'' to set a fellow up." Frequent mention of a bagnio is made in '' A Maggot'' (1985) by

John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. After leaving Oxford Uni ...

, set in 1736 and mainly written in the English of that time. In Fowles' novel, the term denotes a brothel, specifically the one run by 'Mistress Claiborne'.

References

Bibliography

*
"Bagnio"
in Chamber's ''Cyclopaedia'', 1728 {{Authority control Ottoman baths Defunct prisons in Turkey History of slavery Types of coffeehouses and cafés Slave cabins and quarters Slavery in the Ottoman Empire