But what’s the reality behind the iconic mask? Not Just Any Doctor Plague doctors were government contractors. When the plague struck a European town, the local government hired a doctor ...

Avoid him like the plague ... as a 17th-century plague doctor, according to a report. The menacing oddball — who sports a black cloak, hat and beak-like mask — has been spotted several ...

One of the most distinctive masks worn during the Carnival of Venice is “Il Medico della Peste,” or “The Plague Doctor.” But the distinctive bone-white mask and black clothing was actually ...

She says one particular mask is selling big this fall. “That plague doctor mask with the pointy nose, it’s brown,” Cameron says. “Of course, plague says it all, so I think they just want ...

(Today, you might recognize it from the “plague doctor” costumes worn during the Carnival of Venice, as it’s associated with Il Medico della Peste, the famous commedia dell’arte character.) ...

The plague doctor costume looks like a cross between a steampunk crow and the Grim Reaper, and has come to represent both the terrors of the Black Death and the foreignness of medieval medicine.