Ospedale Degli Innocenti (The Hopsital of the Innocents)

The Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents) is an orphanage that Filippo Brunelleschi built in 1419. One of the more interesting features of the nine loggia building was the rotating door, for which parents would were giving their children up for adoption could do so in anonymity. Just this small feature is telling of the man who built the orphanage. It is the fact that he took into consideration the stigma of abandoning a child, for one reason or another, by enlisting the security of a rotating door, which makes the building brilliant. It shows Brunelleschi's sympathy for those who could not parent their children, and allow them a freedom from shame.

Brunelleschi focused on the perception of a person, which is no doubt why this door was put into place. Even today, parents who give up their children are looked upon with a scathing eye. Imagine the fifteenth century, what looks would they give to an unwed mother who gave birth to a child who was fatherless? I can argue that they shared a fate much worse then the girls of today. Brunelleschi took this into consideration. He made a door that would keep the gossiping eyes away from ravaging fragile girls, just trying to give their children a better chance.

The architecture speaks for itself as well. He used geometric shapes to systematic create a building that was mathematical sound. Though the concave areas above the pillars were originally meant to remain empty, Andrea della Robbia was paid to fill them in. In the spirit of the building, he filled the circles with babes swaddled in cloth. Brunelleschi used Romanesque and Gothic architecture in this hospital. With the columns, he included composite capitals (a mixture of Ionic and Corinthian styles) and a smooth column side, reminiscent of the Romanesque architecture. While inside he utilized the Gothic structuring of vaulted ceilings.

With his architecture being so mathematically and empathically sound, I think the orphanage speaks volumes about what kind of man Brunelleschi was. He was a man who believed that perception rules the every day. The perception of a bastard child, the perception of a geometrically unsound building speaks to his conviction. He believed everything deserved a chance. While he could be seen as obsessive, maintaining the integrity of his mathematics, Brunelleschi nonetheless put great passion into this hospital. Just because it was for bastards didn't mean that they should be slighted, and with the architectural plan he designed, it is evident that he insured that they were given the best.

Gelb, Michael. Discover your Genuis. HarperCollins: New York, 2002.