The National Archaeological Museum of the Venice Lagoon is located on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, a place of extraordinary historical value, situated in the central lagoon of Venice, very close to the Lido, in front of the San Marco basin. It preserves a monumental heritage of great interest and is a particularly fascinating place.

In 1423, it was chosen by the Senate of the Most Serene Republic to establish - the world's first lazaretto - a hospital intended for the care and isolation of plague patients. The island was enlarged several times, also through landfills of the surrounding shallow waters; in these areas, recent excavations have revealed the presence of mass graves with thousands of burials.

Around the mid-1800s, it was designated as a military warehouse and some buildings were demolished; after the military function ended in 1965, it served as a municipal kennel for thirty years. In recent years, the island has undergone significant interventions by the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage: in 2008, a considerable part of the structural work was completed with the project of making it the seat of the "National Archaeological Museum of the Venice Lagoon", where to reconstruct the evolution and transformations of the city of Venice from antiquity to the present day, presenting in a unified way the considerable materials recovered from thousands of archaeological researches.