L’Orbatello a Firenze, una cittadella delle donne fra medioevo ed età moderna

The hospital of Santa Maria Annunziata, founded before 1376 in Florence, presents itself as an extraordinarily early and effective model for the reception, cohabitation and social reintegration of poor and single women, hence the name ‘Orbatello’ given to the institution. It is located in an area dense with spiritual (Santissima Annunziata, Santa Maria degli Angeli) and social-health (Santa Maria Nuova, Innocenti) care places, the institution enters into a networked relationship with. The complex, which is quite extensive, but hidden from the city, is accessed through a single gateway, which favors control and protection; a small courtyard leads directly to the church, a place of devotion and reunion, or to the residential area, composed of several regular blocks according to a pattern typical of the Florentine terre nuove. The housing pattern is made of overlapping two-rooms apartments intended for female couples with children, stimulating mutual support, solidarity and neighborhood unity. Within 60 houses, over 200 guests are provided with a bedroom, a living room with kitchen and sufficient space to practice work activities, particularly weaving. The physiognomy of the institution remains unchanged until the beginning of the contemporary age, continuing to accommodate widows, poor and elderly women, until they are joined by single mothers (living their pregnancies in secret) and old prostitutes, relegated to the upper floor of the tenement closest to the church, whose services they can attend from above. The original housing model that aimed at the human advancement of vulnerable women through coexistence and cooperation remains highly modern and can be reconstructed despite later, disturbing and reductive modifications.