ACOSI launches the Day of Historic Hospitals

Thirteen historic hospitals, the most beautiful and oldest in Italy, all open their doors together for the first time on Sunday 9 October.

The words of Edgardo Contato, president of the association of historic hospitals:

“Not only Venice and Florence, Rome and Milan: numerous other Italian cities – explains Edgardo Contato, President of the newly formed association of historic hospitals – possess important health centers which are also splendid monuments, masterpieces of architecture and art. A three-year journey has already led us to bring together the thirteen main historic hospitals, in twelve cities, with the ten managing bodies in an association. And now these thirteen hospitals become the building blocks of a new and original cultural proposal.

On Sunday 9 October, these places where the most modern medicine is practiced within ancient walls will be reopened together for the enjoyment of citizens sensitive to beauty, and where beauty and art also contribute to the care of the sick person. The network of historic hospitals therefore proposes itself as an ideal itinerary in which architecture, art, medical knowledge and social history merge, in an admirable way and each time different from city to city. We are sure that this itinerary in the historic hospitals, which was missing and now exists, constitutes an important contribution to the enhancement of identity places that goes deeper than a simple visit to a place of art “.

Presentations and goals

The first National Day of Italian Historical Hospitals of 9 October, which is only the initial event of the proposal of the Cultural Association of Italian Historical Hospitals (ACOSI), was launched today in Florence, at the headquarters of the Santa Maria Nuova Foundation. The President of ACOSI, Edgardo Contato, who heads the Venice Healthcare Company with its magnificent Santi Giovanni e Paolo Hospital, presented the Association’s program and objectives speaking on behalf of the ten founding bodies *.
Giancarlo Landini, President of the Santa Maria Nuova Foundation in Florence, did the honors. Among the interventions, those of Marco Giacheti, President of the IRCCS Ca ‘Granda Foundation Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan; by Gennaro Rispoli, President of Il Faro di Ippocrate Museum of Sanitary Arts, Hospital of the Incurables; by Paolo Galimberti, Head of Cultural Heritage IRCCS Ca ‘Granda Foundation Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico; by Mario Po ‘, Director of the Cultural and Museum Pole of the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice.

The historic hospitals opened on ACOSI Day

In large historic hospitals, the beauty of the places also contributes to the effectiveness of care for those who are sick. Thus, the National Day of 9 October aims to make available the invaluable historical heritage of structures that are in all respects places of medicine, assistance and care: for this purpose the program of the initiative has been defined. “Open doors”, that is a proposal of guided tours on reserved itineraries, with free admission, in seventeen historical hospital sites of the thirteen connected to ACOSI:
– in Alessandria the “Santi Antonio e Biagio” Civil Hospital with the “Borsalino” Sanatorium and the church of Gardella
– Brescia with the Spedali Civili
– Faenza with the Infirm Hospital
– Florence with the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital and the former Psychiatric Hospital of San Salvi
– Lodi with the historic Ospedale Maggiore complex
– in Milan the Ca ‘Granda Maggiore Policlinico Hospital
– in Naples the Hospital of the Incurables with the Museum of Sanitary Arts and the Pharmacy, the former S. Maria della Pace Hospital, the Ss. Annunziata Hospital
– in Pescia the SS. Cosma and Damiano
– Prato with the former “Misericordia e Dolce” hospital
– the Santo Spirito in Sassia Hospital in Rome
– the San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital in Rome

– Riccione with the G.Ceccarini Hospital
– Venice with the SS. Giovanni e Paolo with the former San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti Hospital and the Santa Maria del Pianto complex.
The visit program during the Day is from here on advertised in the information channels of ACOSI and through the websites of the hospitals and associated bodies, where it will be possible to have the details of the organization of visits, events and itineraries on the single hospital site.

Concerts in historic hospitals open on ACOSI Day

Also on the day of 9 October, a musical event will be held in the most prestigious spaces of each of the open hospitals. The musical program is organized by ACOSI thanks to the partnership with the Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia in Rome, as an event financed by the Ministry of Culture, and with other musical institutions. Each concert will be free.

This is the calendar of musical events already defined:
VENICE Church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti Hospital / 5.30 pm / Soloists of the Academy of Santa Cecilia music by Mozart, Galuppi, Malipiero
MILAN Parish hospital church SM Annunciata / 5.30 pm / Soloists of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia music by Mozart and Rolla
FLORENCE Church of Sant’Egidio, S. Maria Nuova Hospital / 11.00 am / Quartetto Henao music by Bach, Mozart, Cherubini
ROME Monumental Complex S. Spirito in Sassia / 6.00 pm / Winds of the Academy of Santa Cecilia music by Allegri, Cambini, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Rossini (Briccialdi)
NAPLES Lazzaretto-S. Maria della Pace Hospital / 6.00 pm / Soloists of the Academy of Santa Cecilia music by Mozart, Durante, Paisiello
Info: www.acosi.org and www.santacecilia.it

The volume on historic hospitals and the ACOSI Calendar

The journey through the historic hospitals of the Bel Paese – a journey into charity, medicine, spirituality, culture and art – is summarized in the volume “The splendor of care. Journey to the Italian Historical Hospitals ”, which presents the structures that are already affiliated with ACOSI with a wealth of illustrations and a historical-cultural slant. The volume is edited by Paolo M. Galimberti (Sarasvathi Edizioni, main sponsor of the Zago Family Foundation), was presented during today’s event, and will be presented and disseminated during the day of 9 October in the thirteen hospitals.
On this occasion, the dissemination of the first ACOSI 2023 Calendar will also begin.

The ACOSI Protocol with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Culture

“ACOSI and its proposal arise from exponents of the world of health – underlines the President Contato – who have been able to ‘see’ the historical and artistic heritage of these centuries-old hospitals. We have long dreamed of opening to public use all these places where top-level health care activities, or daily assistance to patients, are practiced in monumental contexts, and the great medical technologies are just a few meters away from artistic masterpieces that deserve to be known. Today this intuition of ours becomes reality.

ACOSI, however, is not limited to a simple cultural proposal; instead it is proposed as a place in which to deepen in every possible way the deep relationships between history, art, medicine and assistance. And it is precisely this deeper look that is recognized to us, and that led the Ministry of Health and that of Culture, together, to embrace the initiative of the historic hospitals, through a specific Protocol (attached the presentation) that engages us together to preserve, with awareness and mutual support, to put it in the title of our first publication, the splendor of care, that is, the wealth of works and knowledge that constitutes the past, but also the future, of medicine and health care Italian”.

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ACOSI launches the Day of Historic Hospitals – TeleVenezia