Ospedale di San Rocco
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The San Rocco Hospital in Porto di Ripetta , also known as delle Celate (The Hidden Ones) , was built by the Arch- Brotherhood of Hosts and Boatmen who also furnished the neighboring Church of San Rocco all'Augusteo. It was rebuilt in the same place at the end of the 18th century and served as a hospital until 1892. The building was demolished to make way for today's Piazza Augusto Imperatore .
history
With the bull Cogitantes humanae conditionis of June 1, 1499, Alexander VI. the Arch Brotherhood of St. Rochus the Landlords and Skippers in Ripetta to build a church, an oratory and a hospital on a plot of land near the Augustus mausoleum , which are dedicated to St. Rochus . The hospital building was built next to the church. The building was in a popular, densely populated area. On the walls of the Augustus Mausoleum was a cluster of intersecting houses that were home to families whose livelihoods depended on the activities of the river port. The men's hospital, which had been in operation since 1524, was expanded on the sub montis augustalis property and completed in 1528.
The hospital is marked on Giovanni Battista Nolli's Rome map from 1748 with the numbers 470 and 471 (men's and women's wards).
Originally the San Rocco hospital served as a refuge for plague victims and had a female and a male area. It then changed its area of operation and became a hospital for the general public and also accepted pregnant women. It had 50 beds, the number of which changed over time. One wing was intended for the boatmen's wives so that they would not have to give birth on the boats in unhealthy conditions. The proximity of the ortacci - the area assigned to prostitutes between Via del Corso and Via di Ripetta - caused a lot of work for the San Rocco Hospital, as it was also able to accept hidden maternity leave.
The women who have recently given birth and those who are hidden
They came at night with their faces covered. They were registered with a number and no one could determine their identity. Their faces were hidden from everyone except the midwife and obstetrician. Their newborn babies were placed in the Pia Casa degli Esposti, the Ospidale di Santo Spirto . Hospitalization was free of charge for eight days after the birth for the hidden ; but if they wanted to hide their pregnancy too, they paid 3 scudi a day (32 in the 19th century). They had separate rooms with beds that were draped with curtains. The protection affected everyone: relatives, visitors, religious and judicial authorities and was never injured.
If a hidden woman died in childbirth, her body was buried in its own cemetery outside the Porta del Popolo and her grave was marked with the hospital access number. The small cemetery was abandoned when the Via del Muro Torto was built.
Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati , patron of the Arch Brotherhood, handed over his property in Acquasona near Galeria , in the north of Rome, in his will to San Rocco. The proceeds were to be used to liquidate the men's department and to use the entire hospital for women, especially for pregnant women. The hospital was then rebuilt between 1605 and 1612 for 5,659 Scudi, demolishing two houses on the Augustea pier and buying a garden from the nearby San Girolamo Church . Carlo Maderno was the planner and site manager
As an all-women hospital, San Rocco started operations in 1608 and existed for almost three centuries. Clemens XIV dissolved the department for sick women around 1770 and established San Rocco only for women giving birth. The men's ward, which had been closed for some time, had already fallen into disrepair.
University Chair of Obstetrics
Obstetrics had turned from practical experience into a science, a university subject.
It was decided to sell the Acquasona property and use the proceeds to rebuild the San Rocco ex novo hospital in the same location and with an identical exterior shape. The architect Nicola Forti was commissioned with the project. Work began in 1772 and ended in 1776. The dispute with the Corea family, the owners of the Augustus Mausoleum, where theatrical performances were taking place, was ended when the Arch Brotherhood of San Rocco was given all the archaeological finds from the excavations under the old San Rocco building . An obelisk , broken in three parts, was also found, the twin of the one found long ago and erected in Esquilin ( Obelisco Esquilino ). Pius VI requested delivery and set it up in the Piazza del Quirinale ( Obelisco del Quirinale ). The presence of the obelisk in the foundations of the old hospital had determined its shape, a long and narrow rectangle.
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The new San Rocco hospital had an area of 34 × 9 meters with ten windows on the first floor. On the second floor, a room of the same size, but with a lower ceiling, was reserved for the pregnant woman to take a walk. The hidden had separate rooms. During this time the hospital had 20 beds and cared for 300 women at birth every year, 4–5% of whom were operated on. In 1820, 12 people died in childbirth.
After examining the documentation in the Rome State Archives, Curatolo reported: Among the hidden, the deaths were more numerous, including the number of pregnant women suffering from tuberculosis, malaria, stomach ailments and rickets.
In 1786, Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico , Camerlengo and Arch Chancellor of Studies issued an edict on the modalities of the study of obstetrics at the University of Rome. He allocated a room above the sacristy of the Church of San Rocco to the theoretical courses in obstetrics, which the holder of the newly created chair in obstetrics at the University of La Sapienza , held.
The small room was entered through a small door in Via di Schiavonia - a small, no longer existing street near what is now the bridge between the churches of San Gerolamo and San Rocco. The midwifery courses took place from November to Easter, the obstetrics courses for medical students from White Sunday to mid-September.
The surgeon Francesco Asdrubali, the first to hold the Chair of Obstetrics at La Sapienza, was also the chief surgeon of San Rocco. His successors had the same double mindset.
Panunzi's dream
In those years, the Osti and Barcaroli of Ripetta looked after the increasingly numerous university students. The number exceeded those enrolled in theology and pharmacy.
In 1855 Antonio Panunzi held the chair of obstetrics and headed the San Rocco Hospital. He formally asked for the academic lecture schedule to be extended and for recently terminated women to be hospitalized "for as long as the midwife deemed necessary." He turned to Cardinal Carlo Luigi Morichini , President of the Roman Hospitals, for a new hospital location in a decentralized area in the south, where the city continued to expand.
He wanted a new facility with gardens, bathrooms, separate corridors for pregnant women and women who have recently given birth, and separate rooms for natural and pathological births. He asked for delivery rooms that were different from the corridors and for an anatomical physiopathological cabinet. He wished that newborn babies weren't immediately separated from single mothers. In San Rocco the social differences existed and obviously only affected the hidden: no concession to the new hygienic and sanitary requirements.
In order to strengthen the night care, Antonio Panunzi asked for a boarding school for midwifery students whose training had to be extended to 18 months. For Panunzi, obstetrics courses had to be provided for qualified doctors with at least one year of hospital experience.
Antonio Panunzi's official requests were not considered, also because Cardinal Morichini left Rome. Panunzi renewed his proposals in 1858 and in 1865 the maternity ward at the San Giovanni hospital was finally inaugurated. In 1876, San Giovanni became the only Roman university for obstetrics.
Restoration
In 1867 the San Rocco hospital was expanded to include a bath with drinking water and a hospital staff home was built. In 1860 the famiglia alta of the hospital consisted of the principal, the doctor, the obstetrician, the administrator, a prioress and a midwife. The famiglia bassa included the housewife and the porter. With an annual total of 3,529 scudi, the hospital recorded a surplus of 702 scudi.
In 1870 there were 16 open beds and finally separate rooms for childbirth. On the second floor there were another 16 beds for the hidden person and the attic served as a drying room. The doctor Diomede Pantaleoni , commissioner of the Ospedali Riuniti, had the attic equipped with baths and running water and converted into a delivery room. In the basement he organized a room for autopsies, a practice previously unknown in this hospital. The San Rocco had a contract with the Ministry of Education in 1871 and received an annual grant of 4,050 lire.
The end
In 1892 the San Rocco or Celate hospital was closed and the rooms on the ground floor were converted into the Sala Sgambati and used for the concerts of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia . All women giving birth were transferred to the San Giovanni hospital, where a separate wing in a small tower with 8 beds was used for the hidden and remained in operation until the late 1940s.
The building of the San Rocco Hospital was demolished between 1934 and 1938 when the area around the Augustus mausoleum was being redesigned. The bell tower of the Church of San Rocco was also destroyed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fedeli Bernardini, p. 280, the author also mentions the payments to Carlo Maderno as an architect and site manager.
- ↑ Pachi-Samaritani, pp 125-133, the text of the letter of Pius VI. of April 11, 1786 for the establishment of the chair for obstetrics at La Sapienza.
- ↑ Garofalo
- ↑ Pachì-Samaritani, pp. 31–35, State Archives Rome. Fondo Università, busta 296.
- ↑ Pachì-Samaritani, pp. 63 and 64
- ↑ Pachì-Samaritani, pp. 70 and 71
literature
- Garofalo Fausto: L'Ospedale di S. Rocco delle Partorienti e delle Celate . Arti graph. Pinnarò, Rome 1949 (Italian).
- Pachì Antonio, Fausta Samaritani: Ostetricia e Ginecologia a La Sapienza 1786-1986 . Edizioni Studio Ega, Rome 1986 (Italian).
- Fedeli Bernardini Franca: L'Arcispedale di S. Rocco da nosocomio a ospedale delle partorienti . In: L'Ospedale dei pazzi di Roma dai papi al '900 . tape II . Edizioni Dedalo, Rome 1994, p. 279-280 (Italian).