School for Curatorial Studies Venice

Religious orders run them in a tradition of kindness. It was a place of hospitality and prayer, combined with a not so much hidden agenda of evangelization. It then also served as a hospital, but the idea of a single place reserved for medical care only, did not exist yet. You can call it a big medieval Inn, providing also housing. Only by the 16th century, admissions shifted slowly to the chronically ill exclusively. You might give a look at Michel Foucault’s writings to get, a maybe more sinister, but also clearer picture of how medical institutions were established throughout time. The philosophy of a Hôtel-Dieu, of innkeeping in the Middle Ages as well as the philosophy of a contemporary art gallery today however goes more or less like this: “The poor man is happy when the rich has his fun”.