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Abstract: The essay explores several developments in medical theory and sanitary system following the last major epidemic of 1656-1657 in order to study the plurality of the debate that the plague, as a «total event» generated, even many years later and for different ends to a wide number of players in Roman society. The discussion of the plague became a resource for prelates, surgeons and scientists in order to legitimize their own public positions. To this end, three main aspects are analyzed: the frictions within the health professions and the institutional outcomes of the 1656-1657 epidemic; the medical debate, in the years 1660-1720, with different corpuscular theories opposed to ideas of «live contagion»; the political implications of some treatises by medical police against the plague. Referenze