INCURABILI, OSPEDALE degli. — The emergence of hospitals for the incurable was a characteristic phenomenon of the Renaissance. Two events of great importance, although arising from entirely opposite spheres, led to the founding of this new type of hospitalization: the pandemic of syphilis (v.) and the oratory known as that of Divine Love.
Given the uncertainty of treatment, syphilitics were expelled from the usual places of hospitalization, both because of the frequently repulsive appearance of their lesions and because the hospitals could not provide them with adequate care. These sick persons, considered incurable, scattered throughout the city, living on church steps or at street corners until death, often without any consolation. The members of the Divine Love confraternity took care of them; its oratory had been founded by the Genoese Ettore Vernazza. Inspired by Caterina Fieschi Adorno, known as s. Caterina da Genova, the first seed of the hospital for the incurable took root in the oratory; it was founded in 1499 in Genoa under the title « Ridotto degli i. ». Such institutions multiplied in the cities of Italy, following the spread of the oratory’s branches. In Rome, the primitive oratory in Trastevere had as its hospital for the incurable that of S. Giacomo in Augusta, which had been entrusted to the Compagnia di S. Maria del Popolo in 1451. In 1515 the two confraternities agreed to dedicate the hospital to this new purpose; s. Gaetano Thiene devoted all the impetus of his charity to this end, and through his efforts hospices arose in Venice, Verona, and Vicenza. In the same year, one of the most famous hospitals for the incurable was founded in Naples, through the work of Vernazza himself. s. Camillo de Lellis also contributed to these institutions, and Paolo IV Carafa strongly supported their establishment.