The treasures of Ca'Granda - Milan revealed through 6 centuries of history and art.
The treasures of Ca'Granda - Milan revealed through 6 centuries of history and art.
"The Treasures of Ca' Granda" is a museum that collects part of the immense collections of the ancient Hospital Maggiore, the result of legacies, donations or gratitude of the Institution towards its benefactors.
The ancient Hospital Maggiore, nowadays the Polyclinic of Milan, founded in 1456 by Francesco Sforza, had its headquarters in the building where today this museum is located and throughout the structure that houses the current University of Milan. It got also called "Ca' Granda", the great house of the Milanese, where the poor and needy were welcomed, cared for and assisted. The Hospital was also where many families left their children to be raised in health and started to work.
In these six centuries of history, the Hospital grew and maintained itself thanks to the benevolence of its citizens, Milanese nobility, aristocratic families, and the clergy: due to them, Ca' Granda inherited estates, lands, properties and buildings that permitted Ca'Granda to sustained itself and provide free medical assistance to all in need.
To acknowledge the most important benefactors and encourage new donations, the Hospital began in 1602 to commission gratulatory portraits. The execution of the artworks got entrusted to the most famous artists of the time: thus, was born the Quadreria dei Benefattori, which today preserves over 900 paintings whose authors are among the most established artists in Lombardy.
Thanks to this exhibition space, it is now possible to admire these masterpieces that never before could be permanently visible. In addition to representing works of undeniable artistic value, each painting allows us to know the stories of benefactors of various eras and different social backgrounds, all united by affection and gratitude towards the Ospedale Maggiore. Ancient stories but still current because the generosity of the citizens has never stopped, and still to this day, Hospital Maggiore commissions and creates new paintings for new benefactors.
In addition to the precious picture gallery, the artistic goods owned by the Maggiore Hospital are over 2800 pieces, including paintings, sculptures and objects of various types, dating from the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries.
One of the most intriguing collections is the sanitary instruments, which the Museum exhibits only in part given the number of objects received: it is a curious and rare case of a collection developed within a hospital institution of ancient foundation and consists of over 2,000 pieces, continuously growing. This instruments collection is the testimony of how the Hospital Maggiore has been a leading institution in the scientific field at the dawn of modern medicine. The Hospital Maggiore has always been careful to apply therapeutic novelties and has become the cradle of medical discoveries that still give it international fame and recognition.
The Hospital Maggiore has been a place of care in addition to being an authentic city where transformations got carried out alongside changes that got spread and matured throughout Milan and Lombardy. Milan gets revealed through six centuries of history, which have seen the lives and destinies of those who made this city great, all in one place: Our Museum.
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Hospital Banner
Gio Ponti - Alfredo Ravasco - fratelli Bertarelli
Hospital Banner
— 1935
Gio Ponti designed and supervised the construction of the Banner, giving it precious materials and techniques used. The metal parts and jewelry were made by goldsmith Alfredo Ravasco; Ravasco gave as a gift gold and all the precious stones: topaz, garnets, rubies, carved rock crystal, river pearls. The refined embroidery in gold on silk was made by Fratelli Bertarelli company. On the front is the Annunciation, to which the hospital is dedicated. On the other side is embroidered the dove, emblem of the institution, surrounded by heraldic insignia of the main benefactors and charities administered. The palm leaves of the rods are engraved with the names of the donors who had then contributed to the financing of the work.
The sign was inaugurated on the occasion of the “Festa del Perdono” in 1935, during a solemn service celebrated by Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster in the Duomo.
Coats of arms of the main benefactors
- Francesco Sforza
- Francesco Ponti
- Donna Maria Valcarzel y Cordoba marchesa de Los Babbasse duchessa Del Sesto
- Giuseppe Macchi
- Comune di Milano
- Fermo Secco Comneno
- Lamberto Parravicini
Coat of arms of the hospital
Praiseworthy ecclesiastics
- pope Pio II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini)
- pope Pio IV (Giovan Angelo de’ Medici di Marignano)
- sanint Carlo Borromeo
- pope Pio XI (Achille Ratti)
- blessed cardinal Ildefonso Schuster
- Knights of the Holy Sepulcher
Coats of arms of the main benefactors
- Francesco Sforza
- Francesco Ponti
- Donna Maria Valcarzel y Cordoba marchesa de Los Babbasse duchessa Del Sesto
- Giuseppe Macchi
- Comune di Milano
- Fermo Secco Comneno
- Lamberto Parravicini
Coat of arms of the hospital
Praiseworthy ecclesiastics
- pope Pio II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini)
- pope Pio IV (Giovan Angelo de’ Medici di Marignano)
- sanint Carlo Borromeo
- pope Pio XI (Achille Ratti)
- blessed cardinal Ildefonso Schuster
- Knights of the Holy Sepulcher
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“The Sanitary Museum”
“The Sanitary Museum”
The project for the "Sanitary Museum" can be traced back to 1938 simultaneously to the foundation of the artwork museum.
Hospital Maggiore erected Hospital Niguarda and transferred the hospital activity to the new building. There were appointed spaces suitable for the exhibiting of the art collections.
The museum would have included a pharmacy and a section for ancient tools. On top of that, it would have all connected to an anatomopathological museum. A museum rich in preparations and artefacts such as an Egyptian mummy.
The bombardments of 1943 and the subsequent neglect were the cause of the loss of all materials. What got safe were the precious obstetrics - gynaecology instrumentary intended for Regia Scuola di Ostetricia (1760). A school wanted by Maria Teresa d'Austria that formed surgeons and midwives (1967).
Since 2001 began, a systematic collection of instruments. Most of the objects were of the 20th century, were used in the Milanese field, the Hospital Maggiore and all garrisons connected to it or collected by doctors. The heritage highlights how the Milanese hospital has always been open and ready to incorporate new scientific news or invent and innovate itself.
The exposition route is articulated in disciplinary areas, although this can make it unbalanced, with a prevalence of some specialities. It has also served as an influence for the conservation: the extreme specialization made by the hospital instrumentation, the systematic substitution of newly updated machinery and the casualty of some acquisitions.
The increase of the collection is ongoing, with the challenge to identify objects that will have a historical interest in the future. The collaboration and the help of the doctors and the hospital staff are precious to source and select materials. This collaboration, on numerous occasions, has led to acquiring personally collected instruments or objects that belonged to close family members.
In addition to the objects shown, numerous are conserved in a deposit or exposed in separate collections.
- Dermatological wax
- Antique pharmacy ornaments
- Anatomic - pathological preparations
- The equipment of a medical officer
In addition to the objects shown, numerous are conserved in a deposit or exposed in separate collections.
- Dermatological wax
- Antique pharmacy ornaments
- Anatomic - pathological preparations
- The equipment of a medical officer
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Obstetrics of the eighteenth century
Obstetrics of the eighteenth century
With the establishment of the School of Obstetrics (1767), the training got transferred to the Monastery of Santa Caterina. The building got located beyond the canal, at the corner of the road of San Barnaba (in the area of today’s Emergency Room). Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780) donated in 1773 a set of instruments to the Hospital Maggiore, including obstetric instruments, now lost. The midwives were trained, starting in 1906, in the Clinical Institutes of Specialization.
Here are shown the midwife students at the School of Obstetrics in 1906.
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The obstetric - gynaecological tools
The obstetric - gynaecological tools
Forceps represent the symbol of Obstetrics and were introduced in use at the Hospital Maggiore in the mid-eighteenth century by Bernardino Moscati (1705-1798). By the end of the century, there were already hundreds of different models. Paolo Assalini (1759-1846) invented his instrument (1811), which showed a more respectful and potentially less harmful articulation of the branches. When childbirth did not evolve well, demolition surgeries were frequent, aimed at saving at least the mother. The tools used could be modifications of forceps or derived from other devices suitable for drilling, such as drills. The nineteenth-century instruments on display come from the Museum of the School of Obstetrics.
Francesco Agudio, Del forcipe sega, Milano, Tip. di D. Salvi, 1862.
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Domenico Cesa Bianchi and his pupils
Attilio Andreoli (1877-1950)
Domenico Cesa Bianchi and his pupils
— 1933
Domenico Cesa-Bianchi (1879-1956) was a pupil of Camillo Golgi in Pavia from 1899 to 1904. After receiving his university degree, Domenico devoted himself to morphological studies in Pavia and Francofrote sul Meno. He obtained the teaching chair for Pathological Histology in 1909 and medical pathology in 1913.
From 1909 Domenico moved to the University of Milan.
Initially, Domenico was Luigi Devoto's medical assistant to the Clinic of Labor. Then Domenico became a chief doctor in the Hospital Maggiore (1922), then he was responsible for teaching medical pathology. Finally, he became an ordinary doctor in 1926.
Of Cesa-Bianchi are remembered above all the studies on clinical diagnosis of tuberculosis pulmonary disease, Banti’s disease, pathology and clinical hemoplasmopathy.
Domenico's surname, Cesa-Bianchi, is directly linked to pavilion Granelli for clinical medicine. The pavilion got constructed with architect Griffini's directions and inaugurated in 1933.
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Obstetrics and Gynecology of the first half of the twentieth century
Obstetrics and Gynecology of the first half of the twentieth century
Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, obstetrics followed the general evolution of surgery, made possible by antiseptic means. Gynaecology got increasingly defined as an autonomous discipline. Luigi Mangiagalli (1850-1928) established the Obstetric Gynecological Institute (1906) in the Clinical Institutes of Specialization (ICP), likewise based on the experience of the Director of the Obstetric-Gynecological Department of the Major Hospital, a place of integration between Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Edoardo Porro (1842-1902) was a gynecologist at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan. As a professor at Pavia in 1876, he devised the technique of uterine-ovarian amputation, a complement to caesarean section.
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Obstetrics in the second half of the twentieth century
Obstetrics in the second half of the twentieth century
Even in the decentralized hospitals dependent on the Hospital Maggiore, such as the San Carlo Borromeo Hospital (1967), the obstetric activity gets testified by the instrumental equipment. The exhibited instruments are the result of the donation by Angela Accardo. While there is no shortage of modern tools, such as obstetric suction cups, in some respects, obstetric care has maintained our traditional practices and techniques up to the present day: for example, the auscultation of the fetal heartbeat with Pinard’s stethoscope.
Here is shown in the image: The direct auscultation of the newborn at the Mangiagalli Clinic (1956).
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Mario Donati and his pupils
Roberto Fantuzzi (1899-1976)
Mario Donati and his pupils
— 1933
The painting portrays the distinguished surgeon while he is in the pavilion of Zonda's operating room. The painter accurately reproduces the medical instruments. To Donati, we owe the idea of a suture point that still bears his name: " vertical skin suture from mattress". The professor surrounded by his assistants that can be identified: from the left, Nun Antonietta, Pietro Cazzamali, Carlo Fumagalli, Carlo Lorenzetti, Giampaolo Coggi, Benedetto Austoni, Giuseppe Galli, Luigi Di Natale, Antonino Previtera, Anna Bertolasi (rare for a woman), Giuseppe Nogara, Giulio Canger, Mario Tabanelli.
The artist Roberto Fanuzzi, author of the painting, is well-known for illustrating several doctors and medical schools between the '20-'30 of the twenty-century in Italy and South America.
The pavilion Zonda's operating room: inaugurated in 1915 was directed by Baldo Rossi, Mario Donati, Gian Maria Fasiani, Guido Oselladore, Armando Trivellini, Edmondo Malan, Guido Melli, Giovanni Battista Lasio, Luisa Berardinelli, Luigi Rainero Fassati, Giancarlo Roviaro.
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Portrait of Angelo De Gasperis
Augusto Gardini (1896 - ?)
Portrait of Angelo De Gasperis
— 1964
Angelo De Gasperis (1910-1962) was a pioneer in Italian Cardiac Surgery. He began his career in 1938 at the institute of tumours with Mario Donati and later moved to the Clinical Surgery at pavilion Zonda.
In 1947 De Gasperirs attended the cardiothoracic division directed by Clarence Crafoord. He travelled a lot for his studies in London, Baltimora, Boston, New York, Minneapolis. The obstacles he encountered in the university environment convinced him to move his activity to Niguarda, where he received the support of Chief Surgeon Franco N. Rossi.
In April 1956, he performed the first open-heart surgery. Between 1960 and 1962, De Gasperis operated on 82 patients with his developed deep hypothermia technique.
Otello Montaguti, Portrait of Renato Donatelli, 1970. After succeeding De Gasperis, Donatelli (1927-1969) performed the first mitral valve replacement (1963).
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Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusions have long been an obstacle to the development of modern medicine. A breakthrough occurred first with the discovery of ABO blood groups in 1901, then with the discovery of RH Factor in 1940. The new scientific contributions with the methods of storage and control of the transfused blood have improved surgical interventions, which previously had a very high failure rate. The A.V.I.S (Association of Voluntary Italian Blood Donors) got created in Milan in 1927. The first transfusions got documented in the Ospedale Maggiore in 1930. The Transfusion Centre of the Hospital Maggiore Policlinico got established in 1974.
In 1930 the Blood Donors Group was established in the Hospital Maggiore.
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Cardiology
Cardiology
The era of modern cardiology can be said to have begun with William Harvey (1578-1657), the first great interpreter of blood circulation, the first to demonstrate that the heart works as a pump. The recognition of the clinical interest in heart diseases will find in the 18th and 19th centuries a particular focus on the description of clinical and pathological anatomy and hemodynamic interpretations. Only in 1903 that William Einthoven (1860-1927) first records an electrocardiogram on a patient. In the following decades, the new instrumental approach of electrocardiogram entered the clinic and became routine.
An intervention to the De Gasperis Division of Niguarda (1966).
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Digestive endoscopy
Digestive endoscopy
The theme of Endoscopy first was mainly researched in Urology and partially in Gynecology, intertwined with discoveries conducted within several emerging specializations. These specializations are Ophthalmology, Laryngology, Gastroenterology and technological innovations that have followed over time. Some instruments of Endoscopy and laparoscopy used in the Granelli pavilion of the Hospital Maggiore between the 40s and 80s of the twentieth century, recently recovered, are evidence of this.
Some of these instruments are true milestones of the development of the discipline. Moreover, these tools represent how much and what the Hospital has produced and used throughout its history.
Vittorio Ronchetti (1874-1944) was a primary physician between 1936 and 1939. He used the Wolf-Schindler semiflexible gastroscope in over one hundred gastroscopes, among the first ones performed and published in Milan.
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Medical diagnosis
Medical diagnosis
During the nineteenth century, the new trends in clinical orientation resulted in the creation of large hospital centres. Emerging social needs led to the observation of a large number of patients and the introduction of diagnostic tools that would become routine: the stethoscope (1819) and the sphygmomanometer, invented in 1896 by Scipione Riva Rocci (1863-1937) for the measurement of blood pressure, still today symbols of the exercise of medical practice. Such instruments also constituted the constant endowment of the "conducted physician". The hospital doctor Enrico Acerbi had a correspondence with R.T.H. Laënnec, inventor of the stethoscope and applied auscultation and percussion in 1825 "before perhaps that in any other hospital in Italy".
The stethoscope (now a phonendoscope) was invented in 1819 by Renè Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec (1781-1826). It got created for the "mediated" auscultation of the heart and lungs.
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Urology
Urology
Since ancient times surgical interventions of urological type are attested, and that of extraction of bladder calculus represented one of the cornerstones of the training of surgeons, present in the schools of the Hospital Maggiore since the eighteenth century. The development of modern urology in Milan was accompanied by the construction, in 1911, of the pavilion named after Cesarina Riva. An improvement in urological diagnostics and therapy was the possibility of illuminating the inside of the urinary bladder. The tools of the Pisani donation (three generations of urologists who headed the department of the Hospital Maggiore) allow us to follow the evolution of twentieth-century urology.
Dormia’s basket: Enrico Dormia (1928-2009) is the name of the instrument he designed in 1957 for the extraction of ureteral stones, carried out under radiological control.
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Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care
Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care
The achievements of nineteenth-century surgery got prepared by intense studies in "biomedical research". The fatal postoperative complications and surgical pains are required to reduce the surgery time as much as possible. It was, therefore, essential to identify substances blocking the transmission and perception of pain. The new acquisitions allowed to overcome the problem: the introduction of "laughing gases", sulphuric ether (1846), chloroform (1847) decreed the birth of inhalation anaesthesia, up to the development of different techniques for local anaesthesia. In 1966, Antonio Fantoni, Chief of Anesthesia and Resuscitation, brought innovations in tracheostomies with a particular T-stent. He also devised the tracheostomy "translaryngeal" (TLT).
The first applications of anaesthesia with ether got practised at the Hospital in January 1847. Chloroform was used only from 1898.
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Portrait of Giancarlo Riquier
Serafini
Portrait of Giancarlo Riquier
— 1950/60 ca.
A giant of Neuropsychiatry, Giuseppe Carlo Riquier (1886-1962) was assistant to Ottorino Rossi in Sassari, then lecturer in Bari, Padua and Pavia Clinic for Nervous and Mental Diseases. Nearby the pavilion Biffi of the Milanese Polyclinic, Giuseppe deepened his psychiatry studies. In 1959 he established the first chair of Psychiatry in Italy, entrusted to his pupil Carlo Lorenzo Cazzullo, housed at the psychiatric hospital "Paolo Pini" in Affori.
The pavilion "Serafino Biffi", inaugurated in 1912, housed a Department of Neurology, first in Italy and among the first in Europe. The neuropathological division got created by the primary Enrico Medea. Medea got replaced by psychiatrist Angelo De Vincenti.
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Surgery
Surgery
Surgery represented one of the fulcrums of the scientific, welfare and education of the Hospital Maggiore since ancient times and to illustrious surgeons who worked in the Ca' Granda, such as Giovanni Battista Monteggia (1762-1815) and Pietro Moscati (1739-1824), pavilions got named, existing or disappeared. Baldo Rossi (1879-1932), Mario Donati (1879-1946) and Gian Maria Fasiani (1887-1956) were emblematic figures of the surgical units in the Zonda pavilion. Donati is remembered for the vertical skin suture "from mattress" that he processed. Fasiani got cited for his neurosurgical activity. In the Monteggia Pavilion, authoritative figures worked as Guido Oselladore (1894-1969), a former pupil of Fasiani, and Vittorio Staudacher (1913-2005), a pioneer in the field of transplantation.
Gioachino Giancini, "Delle erniotomie praticate nell’Ospitale Maggiore di Milano dal 1. gennaio 1870 al 31 dicembre 1881 in confronto alla medicazione Lister"; statistical notes, "Gazzetta degli ospitali"; n. 33 (23 April 1882)
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Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology
Between the second half of the 800 and the second half of the 900, Ophthalmology introduced equipment and instrumental techniques fundamental for the inspection of the eyeball, its appendages and knowledge of eye diseases, such as glaucoma. The slit lamp (or biomicroscope) is of great utility in the first case. The examination of the so-called "field of view" in the second case, conducted with perimeters and field meters, that towards the end of the '900 will reach further milestones in clinical practice with computerised perimetry. From the Clinica Oculistica of the Moneta pavilion, we can find some examples of these relevant instruments.
The possibility of corneal transplantation in 1949 was a subject of debate at the Hospital Maggiore.
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Otorhinolaryngology
Otorhinolaryngology
From the Hospital Maggiore passed the doctor Carlo Biaggi (1862-1925), hired as a practitioner from December 1890 and the first assistant at the Ambulance Laringoiatrica of Santa Corona from December 1892 until July 1893. Biaggi was a laryngeal physician of the Teatro alla Scala and a lecturer in artistic anatomy at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Classes got also held at the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the Hospital Maggiore. The otolaryngological disciplines got welcomed at the Moneta pavilion of the Polyclinic in 1950. The new location allowed the subsequent development of Audiology and Speech Therapy.
The Ospedale Maggiore inherited stages in the theatres of Milan at La Scala and Canobbiana, which got alienated at the end of the nineteenth century.
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Neurosurgery
Neurosurgery
During the First World War, due to the work of the neuropsychiatrist Carlo Besta (1876-1940) at the Neurosurgical Center of Guastalla, Milan was the site of neurological activity. From 1950, the Hospital Maggiore became a landmark of the entire European Neurosurgery and an advanced centre of experimental clinical research. Moreover, thanks to this research in pathophysiopathology of the cerebral circle, intracranial aneurysm surgery, the chemical structure and metabolism of brain tumours, vascular microsurgery and pituitary tumours. All these activities were promoted in the Beretta West Pavilion "Neuro" by Paolo Emilio Maspes (1906-1989), of whom some personal instruments got recovered.
Here is a picture made in 1956 of the Beretta West Pavilion "Neuro", built in 1904.
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Psychiatry
Psychiatry
The need for psychiatric assistance became evident, especially after the construction of the Mombello Provincial Asylum (1878). On that occasion, the Senavra Mental Asylum, which depended on the Hospital Maggiore, was closed. In 1900, a psychiatric hospital got activated. However, it was not until the early sixties that a psychiatric facility got built on the perimeter of the Hospital Maggiore. It was made possible by the availability of therapies, first convulsive (1935) and then pharmacological (1952). Following the decentralisation of hospitals in the 1970s, the hospital pavilion took on the task to aid psychiatric patients.
Here is shown a session of the "V Riunione monotematica di Psichiatria", Milan 13 December 1960.
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Microscopy
Microscopy
The invention of the microscope got attributed to manufacturers of optical instruments in the early seventeenth century. In Italy, the first compound microscope was built by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in 1624 and then perfected by Felice Fontana (1730-1805), Giuseppe Campani (1635-1715) and others. In 1661, Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) inaugurated microscopic anatomy by discovering the blood capillaries in a frog’s lungs. Decisive improvements were achieved only in the first half of the 19th century when lens combinations got used for both the eyepiece and the lens. A further advance in microscopy began in the mid-20th century with the introduction of the method of formation by imaging scanning.
Carlo Leopoldo Rovida (1844-1877), chief of Internal Medicine of the Ospedale Maggiore (1867-1873), identified and described the urinary cylinders and concluded that they got produced by tubular cells, observations confirmed only at the beginning of the 1960s.
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Laboratory Medicine
Laboratory Medicine
The period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries represents the period in which microscopic research, the development of histochemical techniques, the identification and dosage of substances present in our body got pushed to the maximum and in which the advances and scientific knowledge touched the most varied fields: the Biochemistry, which was born as Physiological Chemistry, with the creation of laboratories "cabinets"; Bacteriology with the identification of pathogens; Pathological Anatomy, with an indispensable diagnostic role for all disciplinary areas. Among the materials donated or recovered by the Laboratories of the Bosisio Pavilion of the Hospital Maggiore, we find some that represent the previously mentioned disciplines.
Here is a picture of the laboratory at the Devoto Work Clinic in the 1930s.
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Radiology
Radiology
Diagnostics by imaging got organized at the Hospital Maggiore just after the discovery of X-rays (1895). In April 1897, X-ray experiments got carried out by Carlo Luraschi (1865-1911 ), who brought his X-ray tubes to the hospital. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a radiological and radiation section got activated. The first radiologists also made use of other possibilities provided by physical medicine: the use of light (phototherapy) and electricity (electrotherapy). In 1906, Ambrogio Bertarelli (1849-1936) created the Finsen Phototherapy Section for the treatment of certain skin diseases, including tuberculosis. This section was the first phototherapy section in Milan.
Radiological Cabinet in Niguarda (1969).
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“Verbum caro factum est” Allegory in memory of an anonym benefactor
Aldo Carpi (1886-1973)
“Verbum caro factum est” Allegory in memory of an anonym benefactor
— 1933
The representation of the hospital life acts as a link between the benefactors' portraits and the history section of medicine. A doctor assisted by collaborators, a nun and a nurse is visiting a patient. In the upper part of the painting, there is a representation of the "Annunciation" dedicated to the Hospital paired with the motto:" Ave Gratia Plena". The allegory honours the benefactor Filippo Sciomachen.
Sciomachen had destined to the Hospital a legacy of 200.000 lire expressing the desire for anonymity. The portrait got entrusted to Aldo Carpi, who painted his brother Umberto's face as the face of the doctor. Between 1911 and 1959, the painter executed other seven portraits for the hospital collections.
Here is a photo of a hospital lane in the 1930s (Cernusco subsidiary).
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Portrait of Carlo Forlanini
Aldo Carpi (1886-1973)
Portrait of Carlo Forlanini
— 1911
Carlo Forlanini (1847-1918) studied in Pavia with Mantegazza and Golgi and graduated in 1870 with the oculist Antonio Quaglino. Hired at the Hospital Maggiore of Milano, Carlo became Chief of the dermatological department of the Hospital Maggiore from 1871 to 1884. There he affirmed the surgical character of dermatology.
Carlo was a Professor of Medical clinic Propedeutics and Professor of Medical Special Pathology at the University of Turin, where Carlo got the help of Scipione Riva Rocci (inventor of the sphygmomanometer). He joined the Medical Clinic in Pavia.
He dealt with pathology and clinical of the respiratory system; with his brother Enrico, engineer and pioneer of the Air Force, the two developed in 1882 the artificial pneumothorax for tuberculosis. His brother Joseph was a doctor Primary Hospital Major and in charge of the Serotherapy Institute in 1919.
In the image is the "Campari" division for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases respirators at the Hospital of Sesto s.g. (1970). Exercise room and the cardiac polygraph.
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Portrait of Ambrogio Bertarelli
Giuseppe Amisani (1879-1941)
Portrait of Ambrogio Bertarelli
— 1920/30 ca.
Ambrogio Bertarelli (1849-1936) had a rapid and bright career. In the beginning, Ambrogio was an assistant of Carlo Forlanini, then he succeeded Forlanini and became Chief of the dermatological department. He created the departments of via Pace (1908), where he came up with the new section dedicated to photo radiotherapies.
With his brothers Tomaso and Luigi, Ambrogio supported his pavilion with financial donations that reached an overall of 1 million lire. He sponsored the construction of the building "Open School" of Niguarda.
He held many positions: in Commissione Pellagrologica, Poliambulanza milanese, Opera Pia Bagni Marini agli scrofolosi poveri, Convitto per fanciulli gracili e per orfani di guerra in Affori, Società Bonomelli per i poveri emigranti, Società Orticola di Lombardia.
The Pavilion Bertarelli for Crenotherapy of Via Pace (1932).
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Portrait of Agostino Pasini
Umberto Brambilla (1880-1961)
Portrait of Agostino Pasini
— 1947
Agostino Pasini (1875-1944) graduated in Pavia in 1900 and started his career at the Hospital Maggiore in 1906. he continued the work of Ambrogio Bertarelli as Chief of surgery in 1915.
Pasini dedicated himself to the care and research of skin diseases: noteworthy are his studies on fungal skin infections, which led him to discover a new pathogenic species (Microsporon iris). Two conditions named after Pasini's name are Dystrophic dominant bullous epidermolysis of Pasini (or atrophic scleroderma) and the Atrofodermia of Pasini-Pierini.
Pasini was the Professor of Dermatology and Syphiligraphy from 1992 and allowed the Dermatologic Centre of the Hospital to become a Specialized School.
In 1908, Dr Angelo Fermo Bellini made models of ceroplasty of dermatological diseases.
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Portrait of Umberto Carpi de Resmini
Aldo Carpi (1886-1973)
Portrait of Umberto Carpi de Resmini
— 1926
Umberto Carpi de Resmini (1881-1970), a practitioner at the Hospital Maggiore, winner of the Dall'Acqua Prize (1906) and the Association for the Encouragement of Intelligence Award, perfected himself in Berlin with Julius Morgenroth. In 1908 he was a prime assistant of Forlanini in Pavia, then assistant and in charge of the teaching of medical preparation. During the Great World War, he got interested in Tisiology and anti-tuberculosis prophylaxis. Umberto was Chief surgeon, Director of the Specialized School in Tisiology and Respiratory Diseases and perfected his device for artificial pneumothorax. The portrait, executed by his brother Aldo, was gifted to Umbertos's widow, Felicita, in 1972, together with the volumes of his library.
His Manual on semeiotic medicine (Milan 1938) is a classic that formed an entire generation of doctors until 1951.
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Portrait of Amilcare Capello
Savino Labò (1899-1976)
Portrait of Amilcare Capello
— 1968
Amilcare Capello (1910-1946), who specialized in Radiology, began his voluntary assistance at the Otorhinolaryngology Clinic by collaborating whit Professor Ugo Calamida and Professor Franco Lasagna. Nominated in 1942 as substitute doctor of Hospital Maggiore, he provided his services until 1943.
To honour his son's memory, Bartolomeo, Amilcare's father, donated 25 million lire destined for the construction of a small pavilion, which connected to the Institute of phthisiology and got named after his son, who died at the age of 36.
Bartolomeo later appointed the Polyclinic of Milan as his universal heir: to create a "Center for the study and therapy of bronchitis and similar diseases", inaugurated on 25 October 1968 as a Foundation for the study of chronic pulmonary diseases.
Here is the photo used as a model by the painter.
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Portrait of Achille Aliprandi
Luisa Baroni (1904 - ?)
Portrait of Achille Aliprandi
— 1956
Achille Aliprandi (n. 1878) was a chief surgeon at the Pasini Pavilion from 1909 for over 40 years. Esteemed by all for his human qualities and professional abilities, Achille died in Milan on 10 January 1955. He assisted Forlanini in experimenting with artificial pneumothorax in the department "Maddalena" for women in 1909. He donated radiology equipment to the medical division of S. Ambrogio and pavilion Biffi from 1928 to 1939.
His widow Maddalena Pirelli donated a series of medical equipment and funds for the institutes of the poor, ill people. His wife, Maddalena, sent the Hospital the portrait of the doctor, painted by her acquaintance Luisa Baroni.
In 1914, the Pavilion Pasini got built for infectious forms with the Guard and Acceptance Pavilion. The two buildings got erected at "a proper distance".
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Portrait of Mario Donati
Massimo Gallelli (1863-1956)
Portrait of Mario Donati
— 1935 ca.
Mario Donati was one of the most capable European surgeons of the twenty century, author of over 200 scientific papers.
Donati graduated from Turin, where he followed the free teaching in surgical pathology in 1905 and Clinic surgery in 1911; in 1912, he obtained the teaching chair for surgical pathology at the Universities of Cagliari, Modena and Padova. In Milan, since 1933, he had been entrusted with the teaching chair of Clinical surgery. In the same year, Donati replaced Baldo Rossi for the direction of pavilion Zonda.
In 1938, because of the race laws, Donati was removed from his position and decided to refuge in Swiss.
He got reinstated in 1945 with the role of a University Professor and Director of Clinical surgery and died in 1946.
Ex-libris of Mario Donati. The rich bibliotheca of Donati's foundation named after him got acquired by the Hospital Maggiore in 1973.
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Portrait of Baldo Rossi
Pietro Gaudenzi (1880-1955)
Portrait of Baldo Rossi
— 1934
Baldo Rossi (1879-1932) graduated in Pavia; he was the director in the Politecnico di Milano of the mechanic's department (1902). He was chief of general surgery (1906) and director of pavilion Zonda in 1915.
Rossi became Professor of Traumatology in the Clinical Institutes of Specialization and got appointed in 1924 Professor of Clinic.
Rossi was Rector of the University of Milan from 1926 to 1930, succeeding Mangiagalli. Senator of the Kingdom in 1923.
Baldo volunteered as a Major doctor in the Great War. He was the creator of the mobile surgical hospital "City of Milan", which treated nearly 5,000 seriously injured not transportable. His actions earned him the medal silver to military valour and medals of gold from the Red Cross.
Zander machines at the pavilion Coin - Meccanoterapic. "Then I started the treatment at the Hospital Maggiore to articulate the knee. Kinesitherapy," (E. Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929).
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Portrait of Giuseppe Vigevani
Antonio Discovolo (1874-1956)
Portrait of Giuseppe Vigevani
— 1930/40 ca.
Giuseppe Vigevani was a chief doctor at The Hospital Maggiore from 1899 to 1934.
Aside from his medical contributions (e.g., on Subacute cerebrospinal Meningitis 1913, on Syphilitic diseases of the kidneys 1915 or diabetes 1920), we have to remember his commitment to the spreading of Hygiene with texts like: What should not be hidden from the youth of 1909 and reissued in 1911 (which addresses the burning issue of sex education), Hygiene of the generation published by the Italian Federation of Popular Libraries in 1914, or Elements of social hygiene of 1919.
The portrait became part of the hospital art gallery in 1998 for a legate of the widow Irene Cattaneo.
The magazine "L'Ospedale Maggiore", published in 1906, accepts original contributions, developed in the Hospital: an essay of Vigevani: a.8, n.1 (31 January 1930), pg. 23-30.
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Portrait of Silvio Palazzi
Ugo Celada da Virgilio (1895-1995)
Portrait of Silvio Palazzi
— 1932
Silvio Palazzi (1892-1979) in 1925 succeeded Lodovico Coulliaux (successor of Carlo Platschick) as director of the Dental Clinic of the University of Pavia, which Silvio directed for thirty-eight years until 1962. Palazzi radically renewed Odontostomatology, promoted the
Conservative Dentistry, Oral Surgery (with the first bilateral symmetrical resection of the jaw in Italy), Orthodontic Therapy with a biomechanical method, spreading, with the magazine "Quarterly Review of Dentistry". In 1963 he donated 5 million lire to the Hospital Maggiore in Milan, books for the library and his portrait painted by Ugo Celada in 1932 for the hospital art gallery.
The painter reused a painting already begun. On the back of the table: a man with a hat sitting with open legs in a landscape.
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Portrait of Francesco Rosti
Renzo Biasion (1914-1997)
Portrait of Francesco Rosti
— 1988
Francesco Rosti (1909-1981) was a doctor at the pavilion Ambrogio Bertarelli from 1944 to 1974. Edoardo Rosti (1883-1944), Francesco’s father, had also worked at the Photoradiotherapy Section from 1921 to 1941.
Francesco never married and resided for a long time in his beautiful house in piazza Giovine Italia 2, acquired by his parents in 1941. With the holographic will of 8 March 1981, Francesco donated to the hospital the building where he lived and added shares and other goods to share with Pio Albergo Trivulzio. Following his desire, the section of pavilion Ambrogio Bertarelli got named after him.
Here is shown the avant-garde photo radiotherapy section created in 1908 by Ambrogio Bertarelli in Via Pace, in a photo of the early twentieth century.
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Nuclear Medicine
Augusto Colombo (1902-1969)
Nuclear Medicine
— 1957
The painting executed in 1957 got dedicated to the Mangiagalli's Clinic, which had recently opened a section of Telecobaltotherapy for female cancers. The "bomb of
cobalt" is evoked by the artist almost to the centre of the picture. In those years, people assisted in the race for nuclear weapons. As a result, nuclear appeared in the collective imagination as
alien and dangerous. Thinking of the characters of science fiction: in 1954, Godzilla, a monster created by radiation in the Pacific; in 1962, Spider-Man, bitten by
a radioactive spider. On the other hand, nuclear medical applications had a great impulse: the painting tries to convey a positive image of the care with these radioactive means.
The painter stands facing the models who impersonate the doctors while he paints. Of Augusto Colombo are preserved 26 works in the hospital collections.
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"The benefactors painting collection"
"The benefactors painting collection"
The tradition of painting a portrait of the most distinguished benefactors at the expense of the Hospital began in 1602.
The realization of these artworks had a double purpose: honour the memory of the benefactor and draw the attention of other potential donators to the Hospital, that with the portraits could affirm their names in the Milanese high society. In 1810 two charity thresholds were established, according to which the artwork could be made half or full-length.
The choice of the painters got left to the Administration that from 1906 sought the advice of an Artistic Commission. Occasionally, the benefactor himself directly suggested the name of the painter. Most of the chosen artists were well-known figures of the time.
The works were located among the Sala Capitolare maggiore - Salone d'estate - designed by Richini, which is still to these days whitin the Hospital Archivio Storico. However, in 1808 the necessity to add new archive shelves forced the removal of the paintings from the walls.
Since the first years of the nineteenth century, it got asserted the use to exhibit the paintings during the Festa del Perdono under the arcades of the Ca' Granda (now Univesità degli Studi): the most recent portraits at the entrance of the Church and the most antique at the start of the exhibition.
At the end of the nineteenth century, to manage the growing number of paintings, an attempt was made to create a museum display by the Saint Michael's Church ai nuovi sepolcri, property of the Hospital (now "Rotonda della Besana").
It got decided to keep the works inside the Ca' Granda building. In 1941, the museum got inaugurated on the road cruise near via Laghetto. Sadly, a few months later, the Second World War broke out. Luckily, the paintings got already rescued in the countryside, in one of the agricultural estates of the Hospital. The portraits returned to the city only after 1946 without a proper exhibition space.
After 1971 the annual exhibition during "Festa del Perdono" got interrupted. From 2007, 685 portraits of the benefactors and other 285 paintings are guarded and protected in a specific vault.
In addition to the benefactors' portraits, the hospital collections include:
- Estates commissioned by the institution: portraits of Presidents, works related to churches of patronage of Milan and Lombardy.
- Estates received with heritages, in some cases funerary monuments and collections.
- Sculptures, furnishings, ornaments and medals.
- Estates commissioned by the institution: portraits of Presidents, works related to churches of patronage of Milan and Lombardy.
- Estates received with heritages, in some cases funerary monuments and collections.
- Sculptures, furnishings, ornaments and medals.
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Portrait of Filippo Pirogalli
Filippo Abbiati (1640-1715)
Portrait of Filippo Pirogalli
— 1677
Filippo Pirogalli, a merchant of silver and gold, died in 1677. He left the Hospital money and goods in Abbiategrasso.
A recurring theme in portraits is the representation of the will on the table or the act of writing.
Filippo Abbiati executed the painting. He was one of the most relevant representatives of the Milanese painting art of the second half of the 17th century, also the author of "quadroni" of the Dome in 1679. The works portraying the life of Saint Charles were made in a space behind the ancient hospital of Saint Celso, following the transfer of newborns and pregnant women to the new "Quarto delle balie".
Attilio Arrigoni directed the Academy of Art of Saint Luke located in Saint Celso.
Even the widow Carla Boffi (death 1961) made a will in favour of the Hospital Maggiore, demanding to follow the activity of goldsmith art for a three-decade time; Salmon Adler executed her portrait.
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Portrait of Baldassare Mitta
Andrea Porta (1656-1723)
Portrait of Baldassare Mitta
— 1687
Little is known about this benefactor; he draws up a will in favour of the Hospital Maggiore in 1684, three years before his death, leaving territories and properties in Corsico, Inveruno, Conegliano and Buscate (province of Milan).
In the painting, the benefactor is holding up a paper with his will and is leaning on a basement where is portrayed a traditional allegory of the Charity: a mother breastfeeding.
Andra Potta executes the portrait, one of the best Milanese painters of the 17th century, some of his works are centred on sacred scenes but most of them are portraits. He was an apprentice of Cesare Fiori.
Three other works of Andrea Porta are stored in the Collections of the Hospital; here is reproduced the Portrait of Carlo Gerolamo Cavenaghi, 1692.
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Portrait of Attilio Lampugnani Visconti
Giacomo Ceruti "Il Pittocchetto" (1698-1767)
Portrait of Attilio Lampugnani Visconti
— 1757
With the death of Attilio in 1757 at the age of 86, Visconti's branch got extinguished forever.
The benefactor held traditional public office in the citizen patriarchate: he was a judge of streets and supplies and between governors of the Banco di Santo Ambrogio.
Six times deputy of the Factory of Duomo, he was a deputy of the Hospital Maggiore, his universal heir.
The painter Giacomo Ceruti was known for his representation of commoners and "pittocchi" (origin of his nickname "Il Pittocchetto"), while he still portrayed aristocrats and gentlewomen.
The nervosity of the face and the dynamic movement of the body manifests in the painting the concrete and objective observation of reality that are typical traits of Attilio.
The executor of the will, cardinal Giuseppe Pozzobonelli, received an ancient Book of Hours belonging to Saint Charles and 50 litres of white and red wine: "one of my best possessions".
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Portrait of Pietro Lattuada
Pelagio Palagi (1775-1860)
Portrait of Pietro Lattuada
— 1822
Pietro Lattuada served in the Austrian Military for fifty years as Captain and had the privilege to wear the uniform as Major of the Army.
Lattuada nominated the Hospital as his heir. The will was at the centre of a legal dispute that caused a big scandal in Milan. In his will, he remembers the Pio Albergo Trivulzio and the Orphanage of Martinitt.
Pelagio Palagi executed the portrait, one of the most famous painters in Milan. Palagi was a fresco painter, architect, furniture designer, bibliophile and collector of ancient Etruscan finds/artefacts.
The painting was at the centre of an aesthetic discussion of the cultured Milanese public that compared his work to the Portrait of Giovanni Battista Birago by Francesco Hayez, Palagi's friend and rival.
Pelagio Palagi was Bolognese. Between 1822 and 1827, he executed four other paintings for the Hospital Maggiore. Here is the Portrait of Luigi Rainoldi, 1827.
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Portrait of Giovanni Battista Birago
Francesco Hayez (1791-1882)
Portrait of Giovanni Battista Birago
— 1823
The Earl Birago served in the Austrian Military achieving the role of Captain and pensioned with the uniform of Major. In his will, Birago nominated his wife, Cristina Croce, as his successor predicting large bequests to the Hospital. He had married in respect of the testament of his brother Lord Lancellotto Gaspare (also a benefactor of the Hospital) that had obliged him in 1794 to marry a Milanese lady/dame within two years. Giovanni Battista had requested a monument in the caposanto di Lazzate (where his family originated from) "not for vainglory, instead to receive greater support". The portrait executed by Francesco Hayez evokes a cemeterial environment due to the cypress trees, a tombstone, squared rocks, and the statuary pose of the character.
Francesco Hayez is also the author of two other portraits of the Hospital. Here is the Portrait of Pietro Francesco Visconti Borromeo, 1820.
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Portrait of Giacomo Mellerio
Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867)
Portrait of Giacomo Mellerio
— 1848
Earl Giacomo Mellerio was one of the absolute protagonists of Milan in the early eight-hundreds. He held many public offices until he became intimate Counsellor of the Imperator, Vice-president for the Lombardo-Veneto.
Mellerio was friend of Antonio Rosmini, Alessandro Manzoni, Gabrio Pola, don Luigi Biraghi. He spent his immense wealth and his prestige on numerous charities activities. He contributed to the Pia Unione di Beneficenza at the Hospital and founded the Oratory of Saint Charles for orphans or poor children (in the current area of Policlinico).
Mellerio already owned a palace that had belonged to Giovan Pietro Carcano (also a benefactor of the Hospital), which he had renovated in a neoclassical style. The structure nowadays houses the Transfusion Center and the Transplant Immunology.
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Portrait of Giuseppe Colli
Angelo Inganni (1807-1880)
Portrait of Giuseppe Colli
— 1863
Baron Giuseppe Colli-Marchini was the nephew of the Habsburg General Michelangelo, who distinguished himself fighting against the Turks and Napoleon, and was then supreme commander of pontific troupes.
Giuseppe got a law degree. At the age of 27, before an erudition journey to Italy, he ponders charity works for hospitals and orphanages. He nominated the Hospital as his universal heir. The painter Angelo Inganni chooses the scheme of the set portrait and represents the moment of drafting the testament. Worth mentioning is the oval hanging on the wall portraying the Festa del Perdono with the exhibition of the paintings of the benefactors.
Prosecution of General Baron Michele Colli, Minister of His Majesty I.R.A before the court of Tuscany to the brother Francesco, Major in the Austrian Army. Florence, 25th August 1804.
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Portrait of Giulia Lucini Colombani
Mosè Bianchi (1840-1904)
Portrait of Giulia Lucini Colombani
— 1894
Giulia Lucini (1851-1893), the widow of Alessandro Colombani (one of the member founders of Corriere Della Sera), decided to nominate as her universal heir the Hospital Maggiore, to which she left the sum of 350.000 lire.
Mosè Bianchi was an apprentice of Giuseppe Bertini at the Academy of Brera. He was the son of Giosuè Bianchi, affirmed author of numerous portraits of the benefactors of the Hospital Saint Gerard and other welfare institutes of Monza. Similarly, his younger brother, Gerard, executed paintings for the monzese hospital.
The benefactress holds in her womb/lamb a copy of the "L'Illustrazione Italiana", the journal founded by Emilio Treves in 1873 that, with the "Domenica del Corriere", was one of the most ridden weekly journals in Italy.
From a private collection: the preparatory drawing in black charcoal.
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Portrait of Carlo Rotta
Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899)
Portrait of Carlo Rotta
— 1897
Giuseppe Rotta, the owner of a soap factory inherited from his father Carlo, leaves the Hospital as an heir, requesting to also make portraits of his parents and wife Angela Maccia Rotta.
The realistic aspect of the painting is full of symbolic connotations, for example, we can see the contrast between the warm and reassuring atmosphere of the interior and the cold darkness into which the city is plunged, which can be seen through the window. The ray of light given by the lamp on the writing desk lights up the benefactor's face and unites itself with the streetlamp that illuminates the stretcher-bearers of the Hospital.
The stretchers used by the Hospital between the 18th and 19th centuries were closed by a canopy and topped by the symbol of the Hospital: a dove.
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Portrait of Savina Alfieri Nasoni Borsa
Emilio Longoni (1859-1932)
Portrait of Savina Alfieri Nasoni Borsa
— 1900
Savina Alfieri, the widow of the well-known philanthropist Vincenzo Nasoni, donated 60.000 lire in 1899 in favour of the Hospital. The benefactress supported even the Institute of Blinds, the Institute of Saint Crown, the Pio Albergo Trivulzio and founded in Niguarda a kindergarten. Initially, the portrait got commissioned to Giuseppe Mentessi, then it was executed by his friend Emilio Longoni. The background landscape of the spring garden and the brightness of the canvas are typical traits of the artist at that time, whereas the cherry blossoms recall a fashionable Japanese painting technique. Longoni took as a model photograph a photo of Savina as written on the canvas, even though the benefactress was still alive.
The Hospital collections kept another painting by Longoni, received with Zonda's inheritance, Le Capinere or Le Monachine che guardano un nido that was sold by Grubicy and was attributed to Segantini.
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Portrait of Odoardo Fano
Angelo Morbelli (1853-1919)
Portrait of Odoardo Fano
— 1906
The accountant Odoardo Fano, Garibaldian and militant of the "Cacciatori delle Alpi" dies celibate in 1904 and nominates as his universal heir the Hospital Maggiore. Angelo Morbelli delays the execution of the portrait for many months due to being busy with other works destined for the Biennale of Venice. The painting was finished on the 3rd of October 1906 and was approved by Eugenio Fano, brother of the benefactor, that had attended to the artist during the work suggesting physiognomic and unique details.
The painting has a simple photographic approach and is characterized by a minuscule pointillist texture; one of the rarest portraits on commission executed by Morbelli, known for the touching views of Vecchioni del Pio Albergo Trivulzio.
The archive kept papers related to the activity of the benefactor, in one of these a letter of gratitude of the associates of the Società di Mutuo Soccorso Contro la Bolletta, 1858.
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Portrait of San Carlo Borromeo
Pietro Antonio Daverio (1564-1622 ca.)
Portrait of San Carlo Borromeo
— 1603
In 1595 is established to execute a bust of San Carlo, to place at the entrance of the men's department/unit/ward of the Hospital. Borromeo had nominated the Hospital as his heir during the pestilence of 1576. Only in 1603, the sculpture was executed by Pietro Antonio Daverio, who paid 25 ducatoni. The artist, active in the works of the Dome, was not particularly innovative but demonstrates himself as a professional and sober interpreter of consolidated imagery. While still respecting the resemblance of the face and the limits of a conventional cutting bust representation, Daverio enriches the bust with a series of sophisticated decorative details, from the busts of the saints that animate the piviale to the gems that adorn the mitre.
The painted portrait, paid to Ottavio Bizzozzero in 1680, probably replaced the one executed by Vincenzo Lavisone, commissioned on the 6th of December 1602, with the portraits of the archbishops Gaspare Visconti, Francesco Grassi and Agostino Cusani.
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Portrait of Francesco Sforza
Pietro Antonio Daverio (1564-1622 ca.)
Portrait of Francesco Sforza
— 1606
Francesco Sforza's bust, founder of Hospital Maggiore, was paid 180 lire to Daverio the 22nd march of 1606. The bust was placed in the niche above the entrance of the woman's aisles, symmetrically positioned in front of Saint Charles's one, made a few years before. In this case, the author had to restore the image of a distant character in time that didn't have the same following as Borromeo's figure. Daverio even executed some projects destined for the Dome and commissioned by Antonio Brambilla. The author represents the character of Francesco Sforza with simplicity, portraying him with a face streaked by wrinkles. A knotted cloak resting on the decorated armour breaks up the stiffness of the composition.
In 1941 to remember the fundamental role that Bianca Maria Visconti had in the foundation of the Hospital; a bust portrait was made in marble by Dante Parini (the plaster model has been stored).
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Portrait of Giacomo Sannazzari della Ripa
Camillo Pacetti (1758-1826)
Portrait of Giacomo Sannazzari della Ripa
— 1804-1810
Giacomo Sannazzari was a great art collector in Milan between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, son-in-law of Carlo Imbonati, and owned a building in Piazza San Fedele. He bequeathed to the Major Hospital, with other goods, the famous "Marriage of the Virgin" (bought by General Giuseppe Lechi in 1798). The bust came with the inheritance and interpreted the idealized figure of Giacomo without the search for physiognomical or psychological realism. Giacomo is portrayed naked as an ancient hero. The author is Camilo Pacetti, a prominent neoclassic artist in Napoleonic Milan. He's known for his vast and polyhedric activity.
The portrait of Doctor Giovanni Battista Monteggia of 1815 by Camillo Pacetti it's still conserved in the Hospital collections.
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Portrait of Giovanni Antonio Valtorta
Francesco Somaini (1789-1855)
Portrait of Giovanni Antonio Valtorta
— ante 1848
The ex-grocer Giovanni Antonio Valtorta administrated different female boarding schools and made numerous donations to Hospital Maggiore and the Institute of Blind. He had married Carolina Uboldi di Villareggio, sister of Chevalier Ambrogio, nenefactor of Milano's and Cernusco sul Naviglio's hospitals. He was well-known for his rich ancient weapons collection. In his will, he nominated heirs: his widow and the Hospital.
The sculpture probably was bestowed with his wife's inheritance, who benefited in her will the Hospital Maggiore and the Fatebenesorelle. Francesco Somaini was an apprentice of Camillo Pacetti. Somaini was a teacher at Brera and was known for his neoclassical style. This sculpture shows a more romantic style due to the naturalistic rendering of the character portrayed.
Cesare Poggi, Portrait of Caterina Uboldi di Villareggio, 1849.
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Portrait of Ida Sacchi
Francesco Barzaghi (1839-1892)
Portrait of Ida Sacchi
— 1881 ca.
The delicate bust, in which the modelling achieves effects of extreme softness, accompanied by pieces of virtuosity, especially in the treatment of the robe, depicts Ida Sacchi. She died in 1881 at the age of 17. Ida was the sister of Guido Sacchi (1867-1937) married to Clementina de Giorgi (1876-1995). The Sacchi spouses, without offspring, supported the pastoral initiatives of the Ambrosian Church. In 1924, they founded the Opera Pia "Valetudo" to help little girls and girls from the dermosylopathic pavilion; the new headquarters of Viale Regina Margherita 69 was built-in 1929. Barzaghi's sculpture, certainly executed after Ida's death on commission of her family, arrived at the hospital in 1937. The sculptor, engaged in those years in monumental works, alongside such commissions also work of small format, in which its vein of refined interpreter of the Lombard pictorialism found perhaps the most suitable measure.
The activity of the Opera Pia "Valetudo" is illustrated in a photo album, which portrays the girls and the staff assistants.
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Portrait of Ellade Crespi Colombo
Cesare Tallone (1853-1919)
Portrait of Ellade Crespi Colombo
— 1905/1906
Ellade Clementina Amalia Colombo (1877-1951) lost her mother at only 15 years old. She got married to senator Mario Crespi (1879-1972). Thanks to this marriage, Ellade became part of one of the most influential families of the Milanese and Italian scenario. She used this privileged position to dedicate her life and become a Patreon of numerous charities. Ellade established the Hospital Maggiore as her universal heir. Her husband decided to donate Ellade's portrait to the Hospital. Her portrait is considered one of the best examples of Cesare Tallone's portraiture. The wide headgear accompanied by a veil was concealed by a retouch when it got out of style.
The tumb designed by architect Pippo Manzoni surmounted by a statue of Saint Francis was executed by Dante Parini and located in Cimitero Monumentale.
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Portrait of Lodovico Bianchi
Emilio Gola (1851-1923)
Portrait of Lodovico Bianchi
— 1906
Lodovico Bianchi (1826-1906) was a counsellor of Appeal. He was a wholesome and honest magistrate who led a modest life. Lodovico established the Hospital Maggiore as his universal heir, to which were imparted a house in via Senato 16, one in via Montenapoleone 6, a villa, with different titles and values. However, Lodovico reserved annuities for his two maids. Emilio Gola executed the portrait. He used a pre-existing painting of the benefactor made by an amateur painter. To be noted is the synthesis of colours that achieves a highly effective result with very few means.
Emilio Gola wrote to the Hospital to accept the commission of Lodovico Bianchi's portrait (16 June 1906).
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Portrait of Carlo Sacco and Carolina Cerutti Sacco
Felice Casorati (1883-1963)
Portrait of Carlo Sacco and Carolina Cerutti Sacco
— 1928
Carlo Sacco (1844-1926) exerted the commerce of cotton yard as the representative in Italy of foreigner manufactures with the company Lombardini e Sacco. He found an intelligent and reliable partner in his wife, Carolina Cerutti (1847-1914). After giving fulfilment to an idea that arose after Carolina's death, he established the Hospital as his heir to build "a pavilion of 80 or 100 beds for sick or poor men and women affected by acute medical forms named after the couple Sacco". The act made by Carlo provided for the payment of an annual income to the Hospital of Saint Anna of Como, funds for the Institute of Blinds of Milan, for the citizens of Belvio, for the Home Rest of the Hospital Nurses Major and the embellishment of the oratory of dermosylopathic pavilion.
Casorati used a photograph as a model still stored in the archive with the letters written to the secretary of the Hospital to update him on the execution.
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Portrait of Carlo Carvaglio
Mario Sironi (1885-1961)
Portrait of Carlo Carvaglio
— 1933
Carlo Carvaglio (1862-1930) was born in Pisa and adopted as a Milanese citizen. Carlo was a banker who lived in Via Pagano 61 and spent his holidays in a villa located in Stresa.
In his will, Carvaglio nominated his daughter as his heir and left the Hospital Maggiore a bequest of 400.000 lire.
Painter Mario Sironi used a photograph of the benefactor to portray him.
The artwork wasn't well-received by the benefactor's heirs. Also, the Artistic Committee of the Hospital approved the portrait with some doubt. The main concern was that Sironi's work wasn't faithful to the verist painting method loved by the Milanese bourgeoisie.
Carvaglio's daughter, Matilde, wrote on the 3rd of November 1933: "As much as the portrait is the work of a well-known and respected artist as Sironi, I had to witness that the painting was executed in a rather synthetic way, too sketchy. For this reason, the face of the person depicted is too abstract and rough, poorly suited to evoke the gentle, quiet and dreary spirit of the deceased".
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Portrait of Giovanni Ballerio
Carlo Carrà (1881-1966)
Portrait of Giovanni Ballerio
— 1928
Doctor Giovanni Ballerio (1888-1917) enters the Ospedale Maggiore as a substitute surgeon. Recalled with the rank of a medical lieutenant, he died heroically
in 1917 on the Gorizia front.
Giovanni's parents, Enrico and Caterina Guglielmini appoint the Hospital Maggiore as their universal heir with an obligation: to make three portraits in their name. Carlo Carrà painted Bellerio's portrait between 1927 and 1929. The painter used an old photograph of Bellerio given by his parents. The work is one of the rarest portraits executed on commission by Carrà and one of the few paintings with painted figures at the end of the 1920s. Gianfilippo Usellini and Anselmo Bucci illustrated the couple's portraits.
Here is the medical board card with the photo of Giovanni Ballerio.
Here is the medical board card with the photo of Giovanni Ballerio.
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Portrait of Sofia Gervasini
Umberto Lilloni (1898-1980)
Portrait of Sofia Gervasini
— 1931
Sofia Gervasini donated to the Hospital three houses worth 400.000 lire. In her will, Sofia was nominated as her heir to the Congregation of Charity (nowadays now as ASP Golgi-Readelli). The painter Umberto Lioni used a photograph of the benefactress during a holiday between Lavagna and Sestri Levante to portray her.
The artwork caused complaints made by her heirs and didn't receive the approval of the Artistic Committee of the Hospital. The artist came up with a second version in which he set the figure of Sofia outdoors, with a more juvenile appearance and gentle face. He replaced the green hills of the previous work with an extensive view of the gulf and the beach. There was the commission of a third portrait to the painter Giulio Cisari after the rejection of the second version by Sofia's relatives.
An accentuated dimensionality characterizes the first version of the portrait and gives it a naive imprint. Similar to this painting is the piece commissioned by the Congregation of Charity in 1937.
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Portrait of Angelo Sconfietti
Francesco Menzio (1899-1979)
Portrait of Angelo Sconfietti
— 1961
Doctor Angelo Sconfietti (1869-1960) worked almost all his life at Hospital Maggiore, where he held the position of vice-primary. Sconfietti was an estimated doctor "with plenty of experience and fine judgment".
Angelo won the prize Paravicini in 1903.
In 1896, as a Major military doctor, he had directed hospitals in Tripolitania. In military hospitals of the Great War, Sconfietti got rewarded with a silver medal and the Croce di cavaliere Ufficiale della Corona.
To remember his wife, Vittoria Ribolzi, he made a will for the Hospital Maggiore. Francesco Menzio received the portrait's commission. Menzio was influenced by Macchiaioli, Impressionists and Modigliani and used the strong colours of the Fauves.
Here is the photography used by the painter as a reference.
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“La Carità”: Allegory in memory of Rosa Sciomachen
Gianfilippo Usellini (1903-1971)
“La Carità”: Allegory in memory of Rosa Sciomachen
— 1962
Filippo Sciomachen was a goldsmith descending from an illustrious family of Milanese silversmiths who settled a legacy of 200.000 for the Hospital and refused the tribute of the portrait. His daughter, Rosa (1888-1959), followed Sciomachen's footsteps and declared the Hospital her universal heir and asked not to be depicted in a painting.
The Hospital opted for an allegoric subject: "The Charity", commissioned to Gianfilippo Usellini.
The painter composes, symmetrically and frontally, a figure that shows the poor a house and spikes while stepping on jewels and precious stones. A small humoristic detail breaks the solemn and unadorned composition: The hand of a black devil furtively steals away a gem.
In 1930, Usellini executed the Portrait of Enrico Ballerio.
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Portrait of Alessandrina Lombardi Nava
Aldo Salvadori (1905-2002)
Portrait of Alessandrina Lombardi Nava
— 1966
Alessandrina Lombardi (1882-1961) married police sergeant Arturo Luigi Nava and donated a building to the Hospital Maggiore in 'via Benvenuto Cellini'. Initially assigned to Achille Funi, the portrait got executed by Aldo Salvadori, director of the nude studies at The Academy of Brera. The painting took a long time to be finished. It appears updated to the current experiments made in the fields of figuration in those years: an example, the detail of the lifeless nature on the table.
The chromatic levels overlap seemingly without depth.
Here is the photo used as a model for the portrait.
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“Città Italiana”: Allegory in memory of Angela Riccardi Lancia
Emilio Tadini (1926-2002)
“Città Italiana”: Allegory in memory of Angela Riccardi Lancia
— 1992
Angela Lina Riccardi (1889-1896) left her property of via Richini 14 to the Hospital. In her will, written in 1973, the benefactress had requested an allegorical painting instead of a portrait. The work got commissioned to Emilio Tadini.
Angela's husband, Emilio Lancia, was a well-known architect of projects like Hotel Cavalieri (Piazza Missori), Hotel de la Ville (Corso Vittorio Emanuele), Teatro Nuovo and some buildings in Corso Matteotti. Emilio collaborated with Gio Ponti and designed various houses in via de' Togni and viale Monte Rosa.
A young photo of the Benefactress Angela Lina Riccardi dated approximately 1925.
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Monument to Giovanni Battista Monteggia
Camillo Pacetti (1758-1826)
Monument to Giovanni Battista Monteggia
— 1815
Giovanni Battista Monteggia (1762-1815), originally from Laveno, entered the boarding school of the Hospital Maggiore in Milan in 1779. For his skills, he got called to operate Duke Francesco Melzi d'Eril. Monteggia got entrusted with the chair of Surgical Institutions; together with Palletta, he was part of the Commission for the study of vaccination against smallpox and the Health Commission of the Department of Olona. His scientific publications are numerous, in addition to translations from German; his most famous work remains the eight volumes of the Surgical Institutions (1802-1805). He was the first to describe infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) and named after him the "lesion of Monteggia" (proximal fracture of the ulna and dislocation of the radial capital).
At his death, a group of friends decided to honour the memory of Monteggia with a monument. Pacetti was the artist chosen for the realization of the work. The memorial, mentioned in a sonnet by Carlo Porta, was lost in the bombings of 1943.
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Monument to Luigi Sacco
Giovanni Pandiani (1809-1879)
Monument to Luigi Sacco
— 1858
Luigi Sacco (1769-1836) was the pioneer of smallpox vaccination in Lombardy in the early nineteenth century. Sacco, informed of the recent discovery of Edward Jenner, devoted all his energy to making the method known and applying it on a large scale: the vaccination of one and a half million inhabitants managed to preserve the region from recurrent epidemics of smallpox. The scene created by Pandiani depicts Luigi Sacco in the act of vaccinating a child, taking the substance directly from the breast of a vaccine. In the background, you can see the Pia casa degli esposti e delle partorienti of Saint Catherine at the wheel and the fence of the garden of Guastalla overlooking the Hospital.
The medical director Pietro Moscati has made wax models to promote vaccination: a cow’s breast, two horse legs and the arms of a girl, and send specimens throughout the Cisalpine Republic.
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Carved Portal
Carved Portal
— 1638
The solemn vestibule from the court gives access to the Sale Capitolari and the ancient "Ragionateria" and "Tesoreria" are part of the expansion of the Hospital Maggiore built under the guidance of Francesco Maria Richini, Fabio Mangone and Francesco Pessina, between 1637 and 1639. The records from the archives tell us all the details. Giovanni Battista Buzzi, probably also a sculptor, as well as impresario and master builder, provided the capitals in stone of Viggiù, the stone of Angera used in architrave and for the frames of the "serliana" and performs "a folder with a mask to the middle of it arch" representing a cherub, the dove of the Holy Spirit, the female face of the Virgin. On the lintel, the inscription Ave Gratia Plena is in gold letters.
In the nineteenth century, the walls got decorated with monuments and tombstones (first of all, in 1808, the one dedicated to Joseph II). In 1868 there are transported the monuments of Locatelli and Sacco.
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Portrait of Gaetano Strambio
Luigi Agliati (1816-1863)
Portrait of Gaetano Strambio
— 1861
Gaetano Strambio (1752-1831) got called to direct the Pellagrosario di Legnano, the first and only European institute dedicated to the care of pellagra, founded at the behest of Emperor Joseph II in 1784. The large number of cases observed allowed him not only to describe the symptoms but also to discover the close connection between pathology and poor nutrition. Doctor of the Hospital Maggiore in 1801, he pronounced himself in favour of vaccination against smallpox. He was appointed Director of the Ca' Granda from 1810 to 1816. Of the monument, today remains only a walled medallion.
His studies are collected and detailed in various publications.
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Monument to Pietro Lazzati
Vincenzo Vela (1820-1895)
Monument to Pietro Lazzati
— 1873
Pietro Lazzati (1813-1871), a student at the Ghislieri College in Pavia, a friend of Agostino Bertani, took part in the battles of the "Five Days" of 1848 and Custoza.
He directed the Pia Casa degli esposti e delle partorienti of Santa Caterina alla Ruota from 1863 to 1871 and the adjoining Regia Scuola di ostetricia, where he had as pupils and successors Edoardo Porro and Domenico Chiara. After the Unification of Italy, he became part of the commission in charge of drafting the regulation of the Brefotrofio. Vincenzo Vela, the most famous sculptor of the Risorgimento, is also the author of the monument erected at the Monumental cemetery.
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Monument to Ambrogio De Marchi Gherini
Alessandro Laforet (1863-1937)
Monument to Ambrogio De Marchi Gherini
— 1890
Ambrogio De Marchi Gherini (1804-1889) was a doctor at the Hospital Maggiore from 1839 to 1873. There he became the first Italian doctor to experiment and introduce the use of general anaesthesia with ether. Friend of Mazzini and Agostino Bertani, he is called by Alessandro Manzoni to visit his wife Teresa and assists the writer in the last hours of his life. Ambrogio took care of the wounded in the fighting of the "Five Days" of 1859 and got called to be part of the Italian Association of Rescue of soldiers injured in war (the root of the Red Cross); we still remember his consultation for the injuries sustained by Garibaldi on the Aspromonte in 1862.
For the monument to Gherini, it got held a competition in June 1889, won by Laforet. The bust was part of a larger project that unfortunately got destroyed.
A. Gherini, Vade mecum for gunshot wounds, Milan, F. Vallardi, 1866
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Portrait of Andrea Verga
Giulio Branca (1850-1926)
Portrait of Andrea Verga
— 1896
On the first anniversary of the death of Andrea Verga, it was inaugurated the colossal monument carved by Branca which is now located in the gardens of Largo Richini. It is probable that the medallion portraying the famous psychiatrist by profile was placed chronologically at the same time as the main monument, probably inserted in a plaque and in a case part of a complex now lost. To Verga the artist has dedicated other works, in addition to those of the hospital collections: the bust of Largo Richini already mentioned, a bust kept at the Museo del Risorgimento in Milan, and finally a monument in the Palazzo Municipale di Treviglio, the birthplace of the illustrious doctor.
Here is shown a commemorative medal engraved by Gaetano Calvi (1895 ca.)
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Monument to Giacomo Locatelli
Abbondio Sangiorgio (1798-1879)
Monument to Giacomo Locatelli
— 1839
Giacomo Locatelli (1756-1836), who graduated in Pavia, first became a chamber physician to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria; with the French domination in 1805, he became a physician for Viceroy Eugene of Beaurnhais. After training trips in Europe (where he got to know the Elementa medicinae di Brown), he obtained a professorship at the Hospital Maggiore. His fame comes not so much from studies and publications but forty years of excellent practice in the clinic and surgery. At the base of the monument is depicted a classical scene carved on a drawing by Giulio Aluisetti: Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health, rescues a sick man lying on a sort of triclinium.
Here is the first Italian Edition of Elementa medicinae by John Brown (Milano 1792).
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Monument to Carlo Ampelio Calderini
Antonio Galli (1811-1861)
Monument to Carlo Ampelio Calderini
— 1856
Carlo Ampelio Calderini (1808-1856) worked at the Hospital Maggiore immediately after graduating in Medicine in Pavia; he got distinguished by his capabilities and was responsible for indicating the remedies against cholera and then called to be part of a commission for the new pharmacopoeia.
Carlo was the author of numerous writings and contributions in medical journals. His contribution to the compilation of the Universal Annals of Medicine was fundamental. It contains a rich medical library, which he bequeathed to the Major Hospital at his untimely death at only 47 years old.
Thanks to a public subscription placed in the library, the monument to Carlo got made to remember his donation. The commemorative plaque that formed an integral part got destroyed.
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Monument to Carlo Dell’Acqua
Alessandro Puttinati (1801-1872)
Monument to Carlo Dell’Acqua
— 1847
Carlo Dell'Acqua (1776-1846), one of the most brilliant doctors of Ca' Granda at the beginning of the nineteenth century, left the Hospital in 1846 about three thousand volumes of medicine, the first nucleus of the Hospital Library, and the sum of 50,000 lire with the obligation to increase collections and to establish an annual premium for publications of young practising doctors. Of the monument, erected with funds collected through a subscription, the sketch presented by Puttinati got preserved. In the Quadreria, there is also the pictorial portrait, executed by Giuseppe Molteni, a probable model to the sculpture.
The bust of Carlo Dell'Acqua is only a part of the original monument designed by Puttinati; the bas-relief of the base got destroyed in the bombings of 1943.
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Monument to Serafino Biffi
Giulio Branca (1850-1926)
Monument to Serafino Biffi
— 1903
Serafino Biffi (1822-1899), a graduate of Pavia, was an assistant at the Medical Clinic, working at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan. Associate of Andrea Verga, he dealt with psychiatric diseases and assistance to the alienated, introducing more comprehensive methods for their treatment. Biffi was the author of 261 scientific publications. Thanks to Verga, they founded the Psychiatric Appendix to the Gazzetta medica lombarda. In 1872 he established the Società Freniatrica Italiana and created the Neuropathology section of the library of the Ospedale Maggiore.
He was President of the Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Municipal and Provincial Councillor in Milan, and Mayor of Albiate.
The bust was donated to the Ospedale Maggiore by Angelo de Vincenti, President of the Freniatrica Society.
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Monument to Andrea Verga
Giulio Branca (1850-1926)
Monument to Andrea Verga
— 1896
Andrea Verga (1811-1895) is considered the father of Italian Psychiatry. In 1848 he was entrusted with the direction of the asylum of Senavra. Verga contributed to improving and making healthier the environment while he studied Anatomy (named after him are the ventricle or hollow of the Verga) and pellagra. Director of the Ospedale Maggiore from 1852 to 1865, he promoted profound reforms.
Verga was a member of the Committee for the Study and Treatment of Hydrophobia; he wrote numerous publications and devoted himself to teaching and research. He founded the Society of patronage for the poor madmen of the Province of Milan.
He was a friend of Cesare Correnti, Giulio Carcano, Giuseppe Verdi, Tullo Massarani, Massimo d'Azeglio, Cesare Cantù and Tomaso Grossi, of whom he was also a personal physician.
In 1876 he was appointed senator.
In his essay Della fossetta cerebellare media dell'osso occipitale, in Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia (1872), Verga contests Lombroso’s interpretation of a similar form in a famous clinical case.
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Monument to Giovanni Battista Palletta
Abbondio Sangiorgio (1798-1879)
Monument to Giovanni Battista Palletta
— 1835
Giovanni Battista Palletta (1748-1832), a native of the Ossola Valley, showed an intelligence out of the ordinary from an early age.
As soon as he graduated in Medicine, he got appointed as a professor of Anatomy in Mantua, where Maria Teresa wanted to create a new university, but immediately returned to Milan at Ca' Granda. We owe Palletta the design and organization of "surgical medical ambulances", or local clinics. Palletta was a well-known, respected doctor and surgeon remembered for his kindness of mind and generous charity towards all the sick. Due to his notoriety, he got consulted by Napoleon in 1797.
Author of other studies, translator of works from German, he also dealt with botany; his most important treatise is the Exercitationes pathologicae (1820-1826).
The highly decorated base got designed by Giulio Aluisetti and adorned by Gaetano Giorgioli. As with most hospital monuments, only the bust has survived, saved from the bombing of 1943.
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Commemorative inscription
Commemorative inscription
— 1769
Inscription in memory of the visit made to the Hospital by the young Emperor Joseph II of Austria on June 27, 1769. The Hospital benefited from the reforms promoted by Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph: in 1767, the accommodation in the archive, in 1780, the foundation of the Pia casa degli esposti e partorienti of Santa Caterina alla Ruota and the Senavra Hospital.
"The grandiose ovoid plaque dedicated to Emperor Joseph II of Austria had been solemnly walled up in the chapter house and had to be dislodged from it when the walls were all invaded by shelving."
Epigraph of Francesco Della Croce 1479, 1785
Thanks to the jurist Francesco Della Croce (1391 or 1409 - 1479), the Hospital Maggiore obtained permission to celebrate the Festa del Perdono in 1460 and the following years. (Della Croce was the canon and the vicar archbishop of Duomo). In 1474, Della Croce decided to appoint as his heir the Consorzio della Misericordia, one of the most famous charitable institutes in Milan, founded in 1368. The Misericordia, as part of the Austrian reforms, was joined to other pious places in 1785, abandoning the original headquarters in Via Broletto and the adjoining oratory. Hic condita iacent ossa reverendi patris / domnus Francisci de la Cruce decretorum / doctoris et ecclesie maioris ordi/narii ac totius cleri primicerii / qui fatalem clausit horam die XIIII / martii 1479.
Epigraph of Francesco Della Croce 1479, 1785
Thanks to the jurist Francesco Della Croce (1391 or 1409 - 1479), the Hospital Maggiore obtained permission to celebrate the Festa del Perdono in 1460 and the following years. (Della Croce was the canon and the vicar archbishop of Duomo). In 1474, Della Croce decided to appoint as his heir the Consorzio della Misericordia, one of the most famous charitable institutes in Milan, founded in 1368. The Misericordia, as part of the Austrian reforms, was joined to other pious places in 1785, abandoning the original headquarters in Via Broletto and the adjoining oratory. Hic condita iacent ossa reverendi patris / domnus Francisci de la Cruce decretorum / doctoris et ecclesie maioris ordi/narii ac totius cleri primicerii / qui fatalem clausit horam die XIIII / martii 1479.
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