Lecture: John Henderson: "The Art of Healing in the Hospitals of Renaissance Italy" (Florence, 23 Sept. 2015)

Lecture: John Henderson: The Art of Healing in the Hospitals of Renaissance Italy
23 September 2015, 18:00
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai, Via dei Servi 51, 50122 Firenze
on the occasion of the Summer School “Art of Healing. Hospitals in Italy in the Early Modern Era”
The hospitals of medieval and renaissance Italy were the concrete embodiment of physical and spiritual healing. These complementary functions were reflected in the construction of some of the largest and most impressive buildings in Italian cities, which also became important centres for the patronage of leading contemporary painters, sculptors and manuscript illuminators. Fine studies have been done of Italian hospitals’ medical role and the style and content of individual works of art in these institutions. However, as I shall underline in this lecture, few historians have attempted to examine the way in which hospitals’ devotional objects and more broadly their material culture reflected their dual mission in curing the body and the soul.
John Henderson is Professor of Italian Renaissance History at Birkbeck College, University of London and a Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge.