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

The origin of this sense seems to be a prison inLivorno, built on former baths,^[1] or a prison for hostages near a bath-house inConstantinople.^[2]Thereafter it was extended to all theslave quarters in theOttoman Empire and theBarbary regencies. The hostages of theBarbary pirates 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 alingua franca known asSabir orMediterranean Lingua Franca, a Mediterraneanpidgin language withRomance andArabic vocabulary.

TheSlaves' Prison inValletta,Malta, which was both a prison and a place where Muslim slaves slept at night, was known as thebagnio orbagno.^[3]

Bagnio was a term for abath orbath-house. In England, it was originally used to namecoffeehouses that offeredTurkish baths, but by 1740^[4] it signified aboarding house where rooms could be hired with no questions asked, or abrothel.^[5]

Bagne became the word for the prisons of the galley slaves in theFrench Navy; after galley service was abolished, the word continued to be used as a generic term for anyhard labour prison. The last one in European France, theBagne de Toulon, was closed in 1873.^{[citation needed]}

The penal colony inFrench Guiana, which was not shut down until 1953, was also called abagne, and features in the famous bestsellerPapillon.

El trato de Argel (Life in Algiers, 1580),Los baños de Argel (The Bagnios of Algiers, 1615),El gallardo español (The Gallard Spaniard, 1615) andLa gran sultana (The Great Sultana, 1615) were four comedies byMiguel de Cervantes about the life of the galley slaves, called "caitiffs". Cervantes himself had been imprisoned inAlgiers (1575–1580). His novelDon Quixote also features a subplot with the story of a caitiff (chapters 39-41 of the first part).

A bagnio, in reference to abrothel or boarding house, is mentioned inThe Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) byJames Hogg as the location of a quarrel between two youngEdinburgh nobleman that precedes one of them being murdered and the other arrested for the crime.

InThe Day of the Locust (1939) byNathanael West, Claude Estee's wife, Alice, says "Nothing like a goodbagnio to set a fellow up."

Frequent mention of a bagnio is made inA Maggot (1985) byJohn Fowles, 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'.

•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Bagnio".Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.
• "Bagnio" in Chamber'sCyclopaedia, 1728