[Details are supplied by the author: Dr Esther Diana]

Publication: Esther Diana, Santa Maria Nuova, ospedale dei Fiorentini : architettura ed assistenza nella Firenze tra Settecento e Novecento (Florence, 2012)

The hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence is among the oldest hospitals in Europe.

Established in 1288 in several ‘houses’ owned by Folco Portinari, over the centuries it has expanded its structure in accordance with a cruciform model of sudden success and propagation. But if the architectural history of the hospital until 1700 is well known, nothing has been investigated in the process of modernization that the hospital put in action the late eighteenth century.

This volume explores not only the events directly relevant to architectural changes, but also those advances in medicine, medical technology, social relationships between health professionals and patients – not least the relationship between the city and the complex nosocomial – who were the real stars of  arrangement of modern hospital.