The life of the city
From the passion for a common life, a great work of charity
The Hospital of the Innocents
Our journey begins in Florence. First stop: the hospital of the Innocents!
They called it the “pulcherrimum haedificium”, the most beautiful building in the city, the complex that overlooks Piazza della SS. Annunziata and on whose entrance steps a bustle of tourists finds refreshment and a moment of quiet from the intense Florentine walks, being able to almost touch the dome with your fingers that a few hundreds of meters away announces Santa Maria del Fiore.
It is a place that was born from a gesture of charity, a gesture of love of a single man, who well shows us which one was the spirit of the municipal man, how much passion he had for the life of his community! So, Francesco by Marco Datini, a merchant born in 1335 in nearby Prato and orphaned by the plague of both parents, having found fortune in Provence and amassing great wealth, decided on his death, which occurred in 1410, to allocate a thousand gold florins to the construction of a building which could accommodate children unfortunately abandoned and left alone in Florence.
A place that, as already in part the nearby hospitals of San Gallo and Santa Maria della Scala had been doing, provided exclusively for hospitalization, to the growth and education of the little ones, giving them a new chance to live! The testamentary bequest was ceded to the Silk Art in 1419, which took charge of having the project carried out: thus Santa Maria degli Innocenti was born, later known as the Hospital of the Innocents.
Sitting here, on the steps of this loggia, that famous architect of ours comes to mind, perhaps the most famous of the Renaissance culture, which forever inscribed its name on the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, as much as on this hospital: Filippo Brunelleschi. Nothing about his project is left to chance: in every single detail Brunelleschi seeks perfection and harmony, in line with the great classical ideal. From the materials, white lime and pietra serena to underline the architectural structures, to the geometries that they create to describe each component.
In this place the hope and faith of men meet the Divine Mercy: therefore each of the nine spans that run through the entrance loggia draws ideally a cube, an element that, already in the medieval imagination, is a symbol of the earth. While each of the spans is inscribed with a hemisphere, given by the succession of round arches, symbol of divine perfection.
The number 9 which is multiple of three, like the divine Trinity, is also repeated in other elements: 9 braccia is the height of each of the Corinthian columns, 9 the windows of the upper floor.
Thus the portico, the church and the dormitory are built around a large cloister with in its center a well. Then, thanks to the intervention of another architect, Francesco della Luna, the complex will be enriched with the buildings that will house the women and girls, and with all that will be necessary for the needs of the children and of the staff who will have to take care of them (the kitchen, the pantries, the places dedicated to study). It’s striking how the Renaissance architectural language starts right here, a public work that takes care of the weakest and most defenseless par excellence: children.
They were brought here and placed on a pile, a sort of basin similar to a holy water stoup, located under theportico and only later replaced by a window with iron bars. Between the bands of the little ones were left objects or cards that somehow made them recognizable. They were often accompanied by the half of a medal: the child’s mother kept the other half so that if she wanted one dayto have her son back with her, this could prove the degree of kinship. As soon as they entered, the children were immediately placed, for a few moments, in an empty cradle which was placed between the two full-size statues of Mary and Joseph to symbolize the priceless value given to each new little one who became part of the large family of the hospital.
It took charge of the breastfeeding and the weaning of the baby and cared about his education. Here the child learned to read, to write, to deepen his faith in Jesus and to approach art. When he became a boy he had the opportunity to attend traders or small artisan shops or textile industries to learn closely a craft. The girls could instead go to the homes of some families to learn how to perform household chores. Their exit from the hospital was bound to the possibility of having a dowry capable ofassure them of a marriage or monastic life. The hospital, like a large family, took care of all her children, waiting to give them a new hope of life, with the constant protection of the Virgin Mary.
The free royal city: BAERDEJOV
More than a thousand kilometers away, in the same period, we find another example in which love for common lifegenerates an opportunity for well-being and care of men. The ancient town of Bardejov, in Northeast Slovakia, rose along the trade route which, along the Topľa river, connected Hungary to Poland. Its first mention dates back to the thirteenth century. It was a great center for trade, crafts and the diffusion of the humanistic culture. It is famous for its fortification system and its thermal baths. The medieval center city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.
In 1376 Bardejov had the privilege of being proclaimed “free royal city”: in this way the city became one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Hungary, free from the interference of the Hungarian nobility and able to have self-government; in addition, the envoys elected by the free royal cities had the opportunity to participate in the sessions of the Hungarian parliament, thus being able to have a say in the matter of legislature.
During the 15th century Bardejov reached the apex of its glory and its wealth. The great economic prosperity of the city influenced the construction of new buildings. The area of greatest interest in Bardejov isundoubtedly the Town Hall Square, the pulsating center of the city. The municipal building, built in the first decade of the sixteenth century, offers an important document of how the Renaissance style has integrated and merged with the already present late Gothic style. The town hall was the seat of the city council, the center of life public of the inhabitants of Bardejov.
The ground floor of the building had a commercial function, on the first floor instead there were spaces at the service of the council and the municipal treasury. Today the same premises are used as an exhibition venue for the Šariš Museum.
The building is characterized on the outside by the high lateral gables, the tile roof, the regularity and symmetryof the windows and an imposing porch on the eastern side on whose lintel of the entrance portal runs a Latin quote taken from Sallust: PRIVSQM INCIPIAS CONSULTO, or “Think before you begin”.
The tympanum of the southern facade is embellished with a clock and the painted coats of arms of the city of Bardejov (including the symbol of the bovine frequently) and of Hungary.
On the top stands the figure of legendary knight Orlando, sung in the Chansons de Geste, in Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato and in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, placed here in defense of city privileges: the original sculpture was in stone, work of the master Ján of Prešov, today it has been replaced by a copper copy. But it is not the only sculpture present: both profiles of the tympanums are inhabited by animal, human figures and monstrous beings. The most curious one portrays a boy with his head between his legs and his butt facing the square: tradition has it that this gesture targeted the members of the city council, accused of not having paid in time the construction work on the building.
Another interesting detail is the presence, on the southwest corner, of two hollow measures that they were used to weigh grain and legumes during the sale, once again to reaffirm the mercantile vocation of the town to commerce (many of the terraced houses that overlook the town hall square were similarly used for commercial purposes). Even the interior decoration testifies to the importance and the dignity of the building. The largest room, which housed the city council, is characterized by the coffered ceiling supported by richly polychrome beams and a mural painting by the painter Theofil Stanczel (1475-1531) depicting the Last Judgment, which came to light thanks to some esearch carried out in the seventies of the twentieth century.
A few decades after the construction of the town hall, Leonard Stockel (1510-1560) would mark the history ofthis city bringing here the new ideas of Martin Luther, who had been his teacher at the University of Wittenberg. Stockel became the new rector of Bardejov Humanist High School, he reorganized the school system in an evangelical spirit by introducing new laws, the “Leges scholae Bartphensis”, which attracted students from all over the world and contributed to the spread of humanistic culture in Hungary.
