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Abstract: In this article we will examine the strategies used by the pontific authorities during the plague of 1656-1657 in order to verify if the city's hygienic service had been, in keeping with the principles of the humoral-miasmatic theory, implemented or not, and the reasons underlying the choices made. Starting from an analysis of medical-scientific debate on the plague’s causes and comparing it with the other initiatives taken by the Congregazione della sanità for dealing with the plague, it is possible to assume that the authorities were ambivalent about the procedure to be followed. This was because they tended to emphasize the contagion theory during the period of the plague and to subscribe to the humoral-miasmatic theory during phases of normality so that street hygiene was largely used as an indispensable form of indirect prevention during ordinary urban administration rather than in periods of emergency.