Hospital Ward of Tonnerre, France (Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire de l' Architecture Française, XI au XVI Siècle). This was built by the sister of Louis IX of France, Marguerite of Bourgogne, who retired to it herself to spend her life caring for the ailing poor.
Accordingly, a much larger and handsomer building was erected. Visitors to Rome admired the new building, and it proved an incentive for larger plans for hospitals in other important cities. At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries some really imposing edifices were erected as hospitals, especially in towns of Italy. It was at this time that the artistic Italian mind seems to have realized the truth, which has only come to be recognized again in quite recent times, that a hospital building should be as fine a structure as the finances of a city will permit. It was felt that nothing was too good for the ailing citizens and that the city honored itself by making its public buildings a monument of artistic purpose. The earliest example of how well this was accomplished is to be found at Siena, whose hospital continues to be down to the present time one of the most interesting objects of admiration for the visitor. Portions of this Siena hospital as it now exists were built as early as the last decade of the thirteenth and the first decade of the fourteenth century. It was during the first half of the fourteenth century that it was resolved to make the building as beautiful in the interior by means of great artistic decoration and frescoes as it was imposing on the exterior. It was not for a century and a half later that Milan's magnificent hospital took on its modern shape, though the city had been always famous for its care of the sick. The hospital movement of the thirteenth century, however, culminated in monuments as famous and as architecturally beautiful as any that have been built in recent years.
To take, for example, that of Siena, a good [{270}] description of which may be found in The Story of Siena, by G. Gardner. (Dent, London, 1902.) The buildings occupy the whole side of the Piazzo del Duomo, directly opposite the facade. They constitute almost as striking a bit of architecture as any edifice of the period, and contain a magnificent set of frescoes, some of them of the fourteenth century, many others of later centuries. The Siena school of painting in the fourteenth century was doing some of the best art work of the time, and as a consequence the hospital has been of perennial interest. Artists and amateurs and dilettante visitors have gladly spent time in studying and admiring its artistic treasures at nearly all times, but more especially in recent years. The sympathetic admiration for its art has led to a better appreciation of the motives of the generation that built it, than even the sublime humanitarian purpose which dictated it or the work for suffering humanity which it accomplished.
It is typical of the times in many ways. We have only just begun again in very modern times, as we have already said, to consider that some of the best of our buildings in any large city should be those intended for the sick and the poor of the community. The city must respond nobly to its civic duties. The idea, however, came so naturally to the medieval mind that apparently there was no question about it. Only in very recent years has come the additional thought that these buildings must be appropriately decorated, and that the work of the greatest artists of the time can have no better place for its display than the walls of a hospital or a great charitable institution. Bartolo's frescoes, on the walls of the hospital at Siena, tell the story of the work that was done for foundlings and pilgrims as well as for [{271}] the sick in the early days of its establishment. The first picture of the series represents the baptism of the children that had been picked up and brought to the hospital.
It is characteristic of the times, too, that one of the greatest pictures on the hospital walls is not something that makes for the glory of the trustees or the founders, nor that is some fancy of the painter, some study of myth or landscape, in which he might have been especially interested. Probably the masterpiece of the old painters is the Scala del Paradiso (the stairs to heaven), by Vecchietta. The picture was evidently painted for the department of the foundlings, and its subject is the ascent of these little children to heaven and their welcome by the angels and saints and by the Heavenly Father. A more inspiring vision to be impressed upon the minds of these growing children who had been abandoned by their own, and who must have felt all of their loneliness in spite of their favorable surroundings, could scarcely have been imagined.
The dedication of the hospital is expressed in terms very typical of the Middle Ages, or as they might better be called, "The Ages of Faith." It reminds one of the formal terms of wills, as they used to be worded in olden times: "In the Name of God, Amen. To the honor, praise and reverence of God and of His Mother, Madonna, Holy Mary Virgin, and of all the saints of God, and to the honor and exaltation of Holy Mother Church and of the Commune and of the people of the city of Siena, and to its good and pacific state, and to the increase of the Hospital of Madonna, Holy Mary Virgin, of Siena, which is placed in front of the chief church of the city, and to the recreation of the sick and [{272}] the foundlings of the said hospital." This dedication is to be found at the beginning of the statutes of the hospital as they were formulated in 1305.
The hospital did excellent service, and most of the original building has remained down to our own day. It has seen many times of trial for the citizens of Siena, and has proved its usefulness. Twice during the fourteenth century it saw the coming of the Black Death, and its wards and corridors and every room were filled with the dead and the dying. During the fourteenth century St. Catherine of Siena spent much of her time in the hospital, and it was her work here that gave her the glorious prestige that came so unlooked for. The special confraternity with which she was associated met in one of the smaller rooms of the hospital. Attached to the hospital there was a special house for lepers, and this was one of the favorite places for St. Catherine's visitations. It is not surprising to find that she was, at the beginning at least, very much opposed by her family in her choice of such an occupation as this personal devotion to the poor and the sick. In reading the story, one is reminded of the opposition that is sometimes evoked at the present time when young women feel the necessity for some occupation other than so-called social duties, and take to slum visiting, or the care of the cancer poor, or some other form of practical aid for the needy, apart from the giving of money, or of doing a little sewing in a Lenten class, supposed to be the limit of their charitable work in their special social circle.
HOSPITAL, MEXICO (FOUNDED BEFORE 1524)