Thirteen historic hospitals, the most beautiful and oldest in Italy, all open their doors together for the first time on Sunday 9 October: “Not only Venice and Florence, Rome and Milan: numerous other Italian cities – explains Edgardo Contato, President of the newly formed association of historic hospitals – they have important health centers that 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 pieces 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. which also beauty and art 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 “.
The first National Day of Italian Historical Hospitals on 9 October, which is only the initial event of the proposal of the Cultural Association of Italian Historical Hospitals (ACOSI), was launched a few days ago in Florence, at the headquarters of the Santa Maria Nuova Foundation. Historic hospitals in Romagna I am the Infirm Hospital of Faenza and the Ceccarini Hospital of Riccione which, on 9 October, will host visits and events.
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
– the Spedali Civili in Brescia
– to Faenza the Infirm Hospital
– in Florence the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital and the former Psychiatric Hospital of San Salvi
– the historic Ospedale Maggiore complex in Lodi
– 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
– in Prato the former “Misericordia e Dolce” hospital
– the Santo Spirito in Sassia Hospital in Rome
– the San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital in Rome
– the G.Ceccarini Hospital in Riccione
– in Venice the SS. Giovanni e Paolo with the former San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti Hospital and the Santa Maria del Pianto complex.
In particular in FAENZA, in the Church of the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital, at 6 pm, the Ravenna Festival Foundation will organize a concert with the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra: first Oboe of the Kiev Orchestra Dmitro Gudyma and first violin of the Orchestra of Kiev, Oleksandra Zinchenko.
Info:
www.auslromagna.it/comunita/cura-attraverso-arte
www.auslromagna.it/comunita/cura-attraverso-arte/acosi, www.acosi.org , www.orchestracherubini.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”.