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The building that launched Renaissance Architecture BRUNELLESCHI'S SPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI (FOUNDLING HOSPITAL) - FLORENCE
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Brunelleschi first catapulted to architectural fame with his design and subsequent building management in the 1420s of the Spedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) between San Marco and the Duomo in Florence. The elegant colonnaded facade was a completely new look (as was much of the hospital design) which launched Renaissance Architecture. Sadly it also sounded the death knell on most Romanesque and earlier stuff that ended up being demolished to make way for the Renaissance - so much so that there is now only one Romanesque cloister left in the whole of Tuscany (at Torri, west of Siena). Latterly, also sadly, the Piazza della SS Annunziata has become an unloved mess of illegally parked cars and scooters, rubbish bins (and often trucklets - it seems to be a garbo trucklet social centre), wooden hoardings, the odd drug pusher and other flotsam. The place looked better in 2005 (below) - though sadly the sun did not shine on the day we were there, but the photo does give a good idea of how the whole facade looks without junk.
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On the horse riding towards the Duomo is Grand Duke Ferdinando I (de'Medici), captured by an 80 year old Giambologna in 1608. For your trivia quota - the statue was cast using bronze from canons captured from the Barbareschi during the North Africa expedition led by the Knights of the Order of St Stephen in 1607.
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More evocatively, in 1487 Andrea della Robbia produced eight glazed terracotta tondi picturing infants in swaddling bands, which were set in the spandrels between the arches. When the hospital was operational there was a sort of monster "Lazy Susan" structure to the side of the main door, where you could place your unwanted baby in the hours of darkness and spin it off anonymously into the hospital within. The blue discs on which the "tondi babies" lie may represent this sad machine. Some of the tondi were replaced with copies in the 1800s, others are original - we know not which is what - sorry!
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All original images © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission
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