Old "Manicomio Provinciale Santa Maria della Pietà"

The old "Manicomio Provinciale Santa Maria della Pietà" has been the main psychiatric hospital in Rome (Piazza S. Maria della Pietà, 5) until its closure in 1999¹. The first stone of the buildings was placed - in the presence of the King Vittorio Emanuele III - on the 28th of June 1909 and the construction was finished after less than two years, on the 31th of May 1911. The new "Manicomio Provinciale" took the name of Santa Maria della Pietà only in 1926, when the ancient psychiatric hospital in the Lungara street was finally closed. The "Manicomio Provinciale" was immersed in a park and consisted of 43 buildings, 29 of them dedicated to the wards². Nowadays, some pavilions have been restored and dedicated to various health-care services, while many others still remain abandoned. Pavilion 6 hosts the Museo Laboratorio della Mente, a museum devoted to the history of psychiatry³. The first Director of the hospital, from 1913 to 1938, was Augusto Giannelli: under him the structure, originally designed to host 1000 mentally ill, reached the figure of 2602⁴.

• Photos by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l#| (March 2010)

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Related items:

• Antonio Maria Valsalva's bas-relief medallion
• Augusto Giannelli's bust
• Vincenzo Chiarugi's bas-relief medallion

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Footnotes

1. See AA.VV., L'Ospedale S.Maria della Pietà di Roma, Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 2003, vol.3, p.7.

2. See ibid., p.22.

3. See the Museum's Official Website.

4. See ibid., p. 167.