Bagnio

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Bagnios were the slave prisons of Turkey and the Barbary regencies. In the Barbary prisons, slaves spent their evenings there, leaving during the day to work as laborers, galley slaves, or domestic servants. The term was originally used for a bath or bathing-house (Italian bagno, Spanish baño), more recently applied to baths of Italian or Turkish cities.

Also used as a term for houses of ill repute (places of prostitution) in New Orleans and in San Francisco into the 1930s.

[edit] References

1. This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain. [1]