Ospedale Santa Maria dei Laici

Several hospitals were built in the town of Amelia and the surrounding area as lodging houses for travelers and pilgrims in transit on the way to Amerina Street on pilgrimage to Rome and Santiago de Compostela, Jerusalem.
The most important hospital in this village was Santa Maria dei Laici (via della Repubblica), built in the second half of the thirteenth century by the Confraternity of Santa Maria dei Laici.
This Hospital ran in its original site until the late eighteenth century when the Bishop moved the hospice to the monastery of St. Stephen, because a modern health care was adopted. The Civil hospital is still called "Santa Maria dei Laici. "
This hospital was founded when citizens gave a few houses and some beds that could serve the pilgrims and poor people.
The hospital engaged in sick people, orphans and widows, and in 1505, following the Donation of Peter Racani,the hospital of Santa Maria dei Laici merged in San Leonardo's, run by the monks of St. Anthony of Vienne, who devoted to the care of pilgrims suffering from the "Fuoco di Sant'Antonio" and even those affected by other serious epidemics such as plague and cholera.
In 1772 the two hospitals were merged by Bishop Struzzieri, who carried out the next phase transfer in its current location.
The Ospedaletto's church is the only memory left of the hospital located along the village of Amelia, which remained the seat of the Confraternity of Santa Maria dei Laici.
Then it became the Confraternity of Mercy and St. John the Beheaded, and it was finally trasformed into a cultural center dedicated to S . Fermina, the patron saint of the city.

_{The Ospedaletto}

_{Memorial tablet remembering the union between St. Anthony Hospital and Santa Maria dei Laici Hospital}

_St.Anthony

_{Ospedaletto's infirmary}

_{Santa Maria dei Laici}

_{Bedside for pilgrims and poor people}

• Photos by Gianina Antonelli ti.liamtoh|3_annaig#| (January 2011)

• Locate the item on this Google Map

Bibliography

• Emilio Lucci, Hospitali amerini sulla strada del pellegrinaggio romeo,

• Emilio Lucci, Trecento anni di storia dell'Ospedale della Fraternita di Santa Maria de' Laici di Amelia attraverso la lettura di documenti provenienti dall'Archivio Storico Diocesano,

• Giancarlo Guerrini, Ospitale della fraternita di S.Maria dei Laici di Amelia, pro manuscripto.