Open for seven hundred years

This hospital opened its doors in 1288 and still admits patients today. Seven hundred years in the same spot, doing the same job, is something almost no building in Europe can claim.

It was founded by Folco Portinari, a banker and the father of the Beatrice who comes up on our walk about Dante. The story goes that his housekeeper, Monna Tessa, planted the idea, and she looked after the first patients herself. The building grew to include wards for men and for women, a pharmacy, and its own burial ground.

By the fifteenth century it counted as one of the finest hospitals in Europe, with doctors keeping notes on each patient and students learning the trade here. Leonardo da Vinci dissected bodies here for his anatomical drawings, and he kept his money here too, because the hospital also worked as a bank.

The portico facing the square dates from the seventeenth century. Feel free to walk through it, because behind the doors on the right the ordinary life of the hospital carries on.

Via Sant'Egidio and Via del Proconsolo bring you to the cathedral square in about seven minutes.