La Mostra    Ospedale Santo Spirito

Public works in Rome for the 1475 Jubilee under Sixtus V

In his description of the 1475 Jubilee, humanist Sigismondo dei Conti tells of the many works Sixtus IV commissioned to prepare the city for pilgrims. These included a remodelling of the Ospedale di S. Spirito in Sassia – a project that began in 1471 and was completed only in 1478.

Sigismondo dei Conti, Le storie de' suoi tempi dal 1475 al 1510..., vol. I, Roma 1883

View of the City of Rome

This engraving, one of more than 600 woodcuts illustrating the incunabulum of Hartmann Schedel’s Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg, 1493), presents a view of the city of Rome at the end of the fifteenth century. On the right-hand side of the foglio, St Peters Basilica may clearly be seen before the changes made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, along with the Papal Palace and the old Borgo, Castello Sant’Angelo and Ponte Sant’Angelo, the Ospedale Santo Spirito, Porta Pinciana, Porta Flaminia and the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. The engraver, who had evidently never set foot in Rome and did not speak Italian, depicted the Vatican obelisk (la guia) – at that time still located by the side of the Basilica – as a tower. On the left-hand side of the foglio, one may clearly make out the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the statues of the Dioscuri (today in Piazza del Quirinale), and of the Nile River (now at the Capitoline), the recently-built Ponte Sisto and, on the far side of the river, Santa Maria in Trastevere. In the middle, the spiralling column that, at that time, was erroneously identified as being dedicated to Anthony (in actual fact it had been dedicated to Marcus Aurelius) still lacked the statue of St Paul that Sixtus V had placed on its summit a century later.

Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, Roma, tratta da: Hartmann Schedel, Liber Chronicarum, Nuremberg 1493

A view of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit

The hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia in the most ancient of Europe.

Giovanni Battista Falda, Archiospedale apostolico di S. Spirito in Sassia, in: Id., Il nuovo teatro delle fabriche et edificii in prospettiva di Roma moderna..., vol. I, Roma 1665

Clerics Regular of the Holy Spirit in Sassia

Sacerdos S. Spiritus in Saxia, in: Filippo Buonanni, Catalogo degli ordini religiosi della chiesa militante..., vol. I (Parte prima degli uomini religiosi), 4 ed., Roma 1738

Nuns of the Holy Spirit in Sassia

Hospitalaria S. Spiritus in Saxia, in: Filippo Buonanni, Catalogo degli ordini religiosi della chiesa militante..., vol. II (Parte seconda delle vergini a Dio dedicate), 3 ed., Roma 1741

Rules of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Sassia

Regole da osservarsi nel sacro ed apostolico Archiospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia..., Roma 1751

Another view of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Sassia

Gaetano Cottafavi, Veduta dell'Archiospedale di S. Spirito, in: Jeremiah Donovan, Rome ancient and modern and its environs, vol. III, Roma 1843