Charity, architecture and urban development in post-Tridentine Rome : the hospital of the SS.ma Trinità dei Pellegrini e Convalescenti (1548-1680)

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the institutional, architectural and urban history of charitable institutions in Rome from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. It highlights the previously ignored central role that these institutions played in the consolidation of papal power and the political administration of the city. The study focuses on the SS.ma Trinita dei Pellegrini at Ponte Sisto, a shelter of pilgrims and convalescents, and one of the four large public hospitals in the city. The building history of the Trinita is analyzed from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth. The impact of the Trinita on the neighborhood is also examined. This reveals an instance of collaboration among three institutions -- the Trinita, the Monte di Pieta, and a Hospice for Beggars built by Sixtus V -- and a papal family, the Barberini, in the transformation of their quarter. These institutions were also an integral portion of papal urban plans. Their large complexes were part of an urban system that included a bridge, the main supply route of the city, and an urban barrier that separated the poorer quarters of the city, and the Jewish Ghetto, from those where wealthy families were building their palaces. Finally, the analysis of the economic context of the Trinita and similar institutions emphasizes the connection between their sources of wealth and the ways they displayed their identity.