Hospitals

The hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, founded by the Portinari family in the 13 th century, was expanded in 1334 when a cruciform ward was completed. This new model for a hospital, with an

Architecture and Urban Planning

Altar at the center and four wings radiating out from it, was emulated during the 15th and 16th centuries—as far away as England and Spain. Previously, most hospitals, being rather small, were simply one or two large open rooms. In Italy, the cruciform design for hospitals became the foundation for modernizing hospital architecture. When Pope Sixtus IV commissioned the rebuilding of the Pammatone hospital in Genoa circa 1475, the plan was in the shape of a cross. Filarete (Antonio Averlino, c. 1400-1469) was a Florentine architect and sculptor who began his career in Rome as a sculptor. He designed the Ospedale Maggiore (great hospital) in Milan, begun in 1457, commissioned by Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan. This was to be the most ambitious hospital project of the 15th century, planned as two cruciform units united in the center by a chapel. Although Filarete’s original plan was not achieved as he had envisioned it, such as leaving the lower-level colonnade open to fresh air, the building was a monument to the Sforza patronage. It was by far the largest hospital begun during the Renaissance, with a front facade measuring approximately 1,000 feet.

Open market arcade. By the mid-13th century, the arcade area sometimes was enclosed, creating an additional space for meetings and council offices on the ground floor. The medieval Bargello in Florence was the first major example of this new style. Renaissance town halls usually followed the medieval mode, with a meeting space one story above an arcade. Although Filarete designed a commercial square in the early 1460s with a central town hall flanked by two mercantile piazzas, the plan never came to fruition. The Uffizi in Florence fulfilled several civic functions. Vasari had designed the Medici complex for offices in general, and during the latter 16th century the Uffizi housed the offices of guilds as well as of prominent city officials. Palladio’s 1547 design for the town of Vicenza involved the renovation of the Palazzo della Ragione, in which the city council held its meetings. As we have learned, this building was called the Basilica by Palladio himself because of its stylistic affinities with Roman civic buildings. Palladio redesigned the two-story loggia to create bays of equal width, with perfect Renaissance symmetry.