Foundling HospitalBy Govind Kumar Singh

Introduction

• Name – Ospedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital)

• Erected – 1419 to 1424

• Architect – Filippo Brunelleschi

• Style – Renaissance

• Location – Between San Marco and the Duomo in Florence.

• Architecture – Italian Romanesque & late Gothic architecture.

• Uses – Foundling hospital is only for orphans.

Site Plan

Hospital

Plan of Hospital

EntranceCourtyard

Elevation of Hospital

Bell

Windows

Arches

Entrance

Columns

Famous babes in swaddling clothes

Entrance & Framing

• The round arches of the bays on each end with fluted pilasters, an idea perhaps borrowed from the Colosseum.

• Ten medallions in coloured terra cotta(the famous babes in swaddling clothes) are placed into the spandrels of the arcade by Andrea della Robbia.

Glazed terra cotta reliefs of childrenFluted pilasters at each end

• When the hospital was operational there was a sort of monster "Lazy Susan" structure (ruota di proietti) to the side of the main door, where you could place your unwanted baby in the hours of darkness and spin it off anonymously into the hospital within -a practice that was only stopped in 1885. The blue discs on which the "tondi babies" lie may represent this sad machine.

Glazed terra cotta reliefs of Babes in swaddling clothes

• Barrel arches with supporting tie rods.

• First floor with generously spaced moderately sized rectangular windows under shallow pediments corresponding exactly to the arches beneath.

• A subtly scaled architrave divides ground floor from first floor

Barrel Arches with supporting rods.

Subtly scaled architrave

Entrance

Courtyard

The whole building is arranged horizontallywithout overstressing its stability.The arrangement of the slender delicate members is almost linear.

Door is in the center of the portico.There is a courtyard inside the hospital just after the entrance.

Inside view of a courtyard from one corner

Proportion

• The distance between the columns is the same as the distance from the columns to the wall .

• The distance between the floor of the loggia to just above the impost blocks is also the same.

• Other geometrical relationships between the cornice, the widths of doors and the heights of windows.

• The height of each column is the same as the distance between the columns and also equal to the depth of each bay.

loggiaDist. Btw two columns

Columns• Corinthian columns are used to support

Round arches.

• Columns are colonnaded on the ground floor. Columns

• Columns are imitation or inspired from Roman Architecture.

• Columns are not fluted.

• Capitals have impost blocks and less projection than Roman Corinthian model.

windows• Windows are in one row.

• Base of windows is started from cornice.

• Windows are above centre of every arch.

• Windows are inspired with pediments.

Cornice

Grand Duke Ferdinando I

On the horse riding towards the Duomo is Grand Duke Ferdinando I.

The statue was cast using bronze from canons.

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