The Hospital of San Matteo in Pavia in the Lombard health care network. A unique case in Renaissance Italy in architecture and decorative cycles

Abstract

The example of the Hospital of San Matteo in Lombard Pavia, founded right at the turn from the Visconti to the Sforza Dukes dominion in 1448, in one of the most learned cities of Lombardy, presents a very experimental assistential building for the historical period in which it was conceived. Its foundation has also been related to the Dominicans of the region, since it was the local monk Domenico de Catalogna, who took initiative to plan it and obtain the necessary permissions. On one hand, San Matteo was influenced by the exemplary hospital of Santa Maria Nova in Florence, whose foundation went back as early as 1288 and which had obviously enjoyed a strong impact already in the Late Middle Ages from the Islamic skills in building this kind of structures. In fact, Tuscany continuously developed intense trades via Pisa with the Mediterranean neighbors, the Iberian states, Syria and Egypt in the first place. But there were more influences in Pavia: the transfer from Padua of the entire scientific library to Pavia in 1388 had surely enriched the latter’s university with a wealth of information from the Orient. For these numerous reasons San Matteo can obviously not be considered separately from a high number of parallel experiences, not only in Upper Italy, but also in the rest of the Mediterranean area and especially it can not be seen as independent from the innovations of the Arab scholars. It becomes therefore inevitable to consider the addressed topics in a global and highly learned perspective.