St John's Hospital in Bruges (Mariastraat 38) "with its wards, church, monastery and convent, is one of the most attractive medieval buildings of its type anywhere in Europe. For 700 years - from 1150 to 1864 - it served as a charitable institution, caring for the sick and the needy. The site originally included sheds, stables, a brewery, a bakery, a cemetery and chapel, an orchard, a kitchen garden and a vegetable garden - all for the use of the hospital and its religious community. (…) Although the main buildings are all that has survived of the medieval hospital, they still form an extremely impressive ensemble"1.
"The museum located in the former wards provides a glimpse of hospital life from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century - a life that remained largely unchanged in all that time. (…) A number of themes are explored through the many valuable works of art, pieces of furniture and utensils that have found their way into the hospital over the years"2.
Now the Museum is also known as the "Memling in Sint-Jan museum" for its collection of paintings by the great master of the Flemish Primitives, Hans Memling3.
- Photos by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l#| (August 2009)
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Bibliography
- I.Smets, St John's Hospital Bruges, Ludion, Ghent-Amsterdam 2001, pp. 86